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Bureau of Mines Information Circular/1988 




Mine Safety Education and 
Training Seminar 

Proceedings: Bureau of Mines Technology 
Transfer Seminar, Pittsburgh, PA, May 17, 
1988; Beckley, WV, May 19, 1988; St. Louis. 
MO, May 24, 1988; and Reno, NV, May 26, 
1988 



Compiled by Staff, Bureau of Mines 




UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 




Information Circular 9185 

Mine Safety Education and 
training Seminar 

Proceedings: Bureau of Mines Technology 
Transfer Seminar, Pittsburgh, PA, May 17, 
1988; Beckley, WV, May 19, 1988; St. Louis, 
MO, May 24, 1988; and Reno, NV, May 26, 
1988 



Compiled by Staff, Bureau of Mines 



UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 
Donald Paul Hodel, Secretary 

BUREAU OF MINES 
T S Ary, Director 



-$&> 






qt^ 



Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data: 



Mine Safety Education and Training Seminar. 

Mine Safety Education and Training Seminar. 

(Information circular;9185) 

Includes bibliographies. 

Supt. of Docs. no. 128.27:9185. 

1. Mine safety— Study and teaching— Congresses. I. United States. 
Bureau of Mines. II. Title. III. Series: Information circular (United 
States. Bureau of Mines);9185. 



TN295.U4 



622 s 



[622'.8'071] 



88-600107 



PREFACE 



In May, 1988, the Bureau of Mines held technology transfer seminars on mine safety education 
and training at Pittsburgh, PA, Beckley, WV, St.Louis, MO, and Reno, NV. The papers presented 
at those seminars are contained in this Information Circular, which serves as a proceedings volume. The 
papers highlight the Bureau's most recent research aimed at improving the effectiveness of mine 
safety training in order to reduce workplace accidents. Areas addressed by this research and published 
in this volume include training strategies for SCSR donning, a work crew performance model, hazard 
recognition, human factors contributions to accidents, a blasters training manual, simulated mine 
emergency problems, and first aid role play simulations. 

The technology transfer seminar used as a forum for the transfer of this research is one of the many 
mechanisms used by the Bureau of Mines in its efforts to move research developments, technology, 
and information resulting from its programs into industrial practice and use. To learn more about the 
Bureau's technology transfer program and how it can be useful to you, please write or telephone: 

Bureau of Mines 

Office of Technology Transfer 

2401 E Street, NW. 

Washington, DC 20241 

202-634-1224 



CONTENTS 



Page 
Preface i 

Abstract 1 

Effect of training strategy on self-contained self-rescuer donning performance by C. Vaught, M. J. Brnich, 

and H. J. Kellner 2 

The work crew performance model: Linking training, assessment, and performance by W. J. Wiehagen, 

M. J. Brnich, H. J. Kellner, and W. E. Lacefield 15 

Roof and rib hazard recognition training using 3-D slides by E. A. Barrett, W. J. Wiehagen, and C. Vaught 23 

Human factors contributing to groundfall accidents in underground coal mines: Workers' views by R. H. Peters 

and W. J. Wiehagen 31 

Blasters training manual for metal-nonmetal miners by M. A. Peltier, L. R. Fletcher, and R. A. Dick 40 

Operations-based training strategy for longwall mining by R. L. Grayson, M. J. Klishis, R. C. Althouse, 

and G. M. Lies 45 

Miner and trainer responses to simulated mine emergency problems by H. P. Cole and Staff, 

University of Kentucky 56 

First aid role play simulations for miners by H. P. Cole, R. D. Wasielewski, J. V. Haley, and P. K. Berger 78 



UNIT OF MEASURE ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS REPORT 


ft 


foot 


pet 


percent 


h 


hour 


s 


second 


in 


inch 


St 


short ton 


min 


minute 


yr 


year 



MINE SAFETY EDUCATION AND TRAINING SEMINAR 

Proceedings: Bureau of Mines Technology Transfer Seminar, 
Pittsburgh, PA, May 17, 1988; Beckley, WV, May 19, 1988; 
St. Louis, MO, May 24, 1988; and Reno, NV, May 26, 1988 

Compiled by Staff, Bureau of Mines 



ABSTRACT 

Education and training research is a major component of the Bureau of Mines human factors 
research program. The goal of human factors research i's to enhance human performance for the purpose 
of improving both safety and the profitability of the minerals industries. This is achieved through the 
design of mining equipment, work tasks, management procedures, and development of human 
resources. This proceedings volume presents several new developments that are helping to improve the 
quality and efficiency of health, safety, and occupational skills training in the mining community. 
Several papers address the issue of how to teach and assess miner abilities to deal with underground 
mine emergencies. Other papers examine practical procedures for defining and cost-justifying the in- 
tegration of structured training and other performance improvement strategies to enhance the 
proficiency of the work system. 



EFFECT OF TRAINING STRATEGY ON SELF-CONTAINED SELF-RESCUER 

DONNING PERFORMANCE 



By C. Vaught, 1 M. J. Brnich, 2 and H. J. Kellner 3 



ABSTRACT 



The purpose of this Bureau of Mines study was to assess the impact of three different instructional 
strategies upon trainee ability to don self-contained self -rescuers. The strategies, designed to deliver 
the same introductory content, were a live demonstration, a structured lecture, and a computer-based 
format. One hundred fifty-five subjects were randomly assigned to groups that had their initial 
donning instruction conveyed by one of the three strategies. The trainees performances were then 
assessed using a number of different measures. It was found that delivery strategy had a modest initial 
influence upon how well people did, but that this effect tended to disappear after one initial hands-on 
experience. It was also noted that a significant amount of skill degradation occurred during the first 
3 months following training. 



INTRODUCTION 



Since 1940, there have been over 1 8 major explosions and 
more than 1 ,000 fires in underground coal mines in the United 
States (McDonald and Baker Q), 4 and Richmond, Price, 
Sapko, and Kawenski (2)). In a majority of these incidents, 
loss of life and property were minimized by the exercise of 
good judgment and the effective use of mining skills on the 
part of workers in the situation (McDonald and Baker Q)). 
This conclusion is in agreement with much of the recent 
literature dealing with human actions in emergencies, which 
suggests that people do not necessarily panic and become 
incapable of taking effective action (Sime (3J). Rather, they 
engage in adaptive behavior based on choices made from 



among those perceived to be available at any particular time 
during the emergency. The variable factor is how well a 
person uses all available information to arrive at a choice. 
That is one of the elements of judgment and decision making. 
Once a decision is made to implement a specific corrective, 
the variable factor may become one's ability to carry out that 
course of action successfully. The problem of whether an 
individual has the necessary procedural skills involves the 
area of task competency. A case in point is provided by a 
series of recent studies undertaken by the University of 
Kentucky and the Bureau of Mines. 



'Research sociologist, Pittsburgh Research Center, Bureau of 
Mines, Pittsburgh, PA. 

2 Mining engineer, Product Research Incorporated, Pittsburgh, 
PA. 
'Industrial engineering technician, Pittsburgh Research Center. 



'Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to items in the list of 
references at the end of this paper. 



BACKGROUND 



In open-ended interviews with more than 50 mine safety 
experts, Cole (4) recorded several accounts of worker failure 
to use self-contained self-rescuers (SCSR's) to escape toxic 
mine atmospheres. The prevailing assumption among those 
respondents offering such accounts appeared to be that work- 
ers are generally proficient in donning SCSR's. All new 
miners are given training, which includes a demonstration of 
the respiratory devices used at their mine. In addition, each 
8 h annual refresher class includes a course on the use, care, 
and maintenance of self -rescue and respiratory apparatus. In 
the absence of empirical evidence to the contrary, that instruc- 
tion has been accepted as being sufficient. Reputed failures of 
workers to don the devices in situations calling for their use 
were most often attributed to poor judgment, panic, or both. 
Other evidence from the investigations, however, has cast 
doubt on the adequacy of current SCSR task training and 
suggests that lack of procedural skills may be an important 
consideration. 

The researchers conducted an extensive review of exist- 
ing training materials and found logical inconsistencies that 
suggest that a task analysis might not have been done prior to 
training material development. Task analysis would begin 
with the function of the apparatus — to enable a miner to 
isolate his or her lungs from the ambient air — and determine 
empirically the most effective sequence of actions for getting 
the SCSR into operation. The following problems, which are 
discussed in detail elsewhere (Vaught and Cole £5J), run 
counter to that protocol: First, the recommended donning 
position is difficult under most mining conditions, and impos- 
sible for miners working in low coal. Second, the donning 
sequence appears inefficient, placing nonessential and time- 
consuming tasks such as strap adjustment ahead of some of the 
steps necessary to isolate one ' s lungs from the ambient atmos- 
phere. Third, the materials do not present a simplified, easy- 



to-remember set of procedural rules to help miners order the 
complex array of tasks needed to get the apparatus on in an 
emergency. 

In the opinion of the investigators, those logical prob- 
lems with instructional content were not the only indicators 
that generally available SCSR task training may be insuffi- 
cient. Summary statistics from 15 mine trainer workshops 
supported the widely held notion that a majority of under- 
ground miners never have hands-on experience with the 
apparatus (Cole and Vaught (£)). This was a cause for concern 
in view of the evidence suggesting that infrequently used 
procedural skills must be overlearned if proficiency is to be 
maintained, and that the overlearning of procedures having a 
motor component requires hands-on training (Johnson Q) and 
Hagman and Rose (8)). Given the critical nature of SCSR 
donning as a corrective action, the industry tendency to rely 
upon films, slide-tape programs, or demonstrations by an 
instructor instead of upon performance trials by the trainees 
seemed less than optimal. 

As part of their effort to show what an optimized SCSR 
training program might include, the researchers conducted a 
detailed task analysis using a controlled experiment in which 
36 working miners who had recently gotten refresher training 
were videotaped in performance trials with the SCSR model 
in use at their mine. Assessment of the tapes allowed the 
investigators to target those steps in the procedure where most 
errors occurred and where most time was lost. It was found 
that individuals spent a majority of their time adjusting straps 
and locating goggles that had been dropped on the floor. In 
addition, many of the subjects became confused and omitted 
tasks such as putting on the nose clips. Only 22 individuals (6 1 
pet) were able to complete the minimum of steps necessary to 
isolate their lungs, and approximately half of these required 
over a minute to do so. 



RESEARCH PROBLEM 



Based on the experimental findings, an instructors man- 
ual and short videotape demonstration were prepared for field 
testing. This package presents a generic procedure for the four 
SCSR's in common use (CSE, Draeger, MSA, and Ocenco). 
It offers the following: (1) a donning position (kneeling) that 
is easy and efficient, (2) a donning sequence that moves 
critical steps (those tasks necessary to isolate one's lungs) 
ahead of the others, and (3) a set of "chunked" procedural rules 
that facilitate easy retention. The present study focuses upon 
two aspects of the effectiveness of training strategies used to 
deliver this new donning method. First, the effect of "front- 



end" complexity and feedback capability was investigated 
using three different treatments. Each of these treatments 
required differing levels of involvement on the part of the 
subjects. The second part of the study deals with the impact 
of the three treatment strategies upon trainee ability to retain 
and demonstrate procedural skills 90 days after initial fram- 
ing. It was expected that the type of involvement required to 
learn the procedure would affect the subject's proficiency 
with the motor tasks during initial performance trials, as well 
as his or her capacity to remember and do the procedure at a 
later date. 



METHOD 



During a 2- week period in July 1986, professional and 
technical employees at the Bureau's Pittsburgh Research 
Center, many of whom make regular visits to mine sites, were 
given 8 h of annual refresher training for underground miners. 
This training was performed according to a plan filed with the 
Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), pursuant to 
title 30 Code of Federal Regulations, part48. Theclasses were 
conducted by two MSHA approved instructors, and the cur- 
riculum conformed generally with that required of the indus- 
try. As part of the course of instruction, the students received 
task training in the new method of donning an SCSR. 

TASK CONTENT 

The actual training scheme involved having each subject 
put on a Draeger OXY-SR 60B as if he or she were trying to 
escape a fire or explosion. There are 19 discrete steps in this 
activity, and as might be inferred, it comprises a number of 
possible procedural sequences with an extensive motor com- 
ponent. Although there are necessary conditions for begin- 
ning certain steps, each step in any possible sequence is 
relatively simple from the standpoint that it does not have to 
mesh with other steps in order to be completed. The task itself 
is potentially confusing, however, because there are several 
sequences in which the complete procedure could be done. 
Nevertheless, as was stated earlier, there is a sequence which 
is most logical. For the present research the task was made 
exacting by the fact that it had to be performed without 
prompting, in the sequence that prior analysis had determined 
to be most efficient, and within a specific timeframe. 

The new 3+3 (three critical and three secondary actions) 
donning method taught to the trainees contains a chunked 
sequence of actions that imposes a uniform structure upon the 
variable discrete steps that combined make up a particular 
action (depending upon the SCSR model being donned). For 
example, to fully activate oxygen on the Draeger one is 
required to (1) lift the opening lever, (2) remove the metal 
closing clamp, (3) grasp the lid and pull until the split pin is out 
of the chlorate starter, (4) insert the mouthpiece, and (5) 
exhale into the breathing bag to activate the bed of potassium 
superoxide. To fully activate oxygen on the Ocenco, a person 
would (1) pull the latch rod, (2) release the latches, (3) open 
the case, (4) open the oxygen valve, (5) inserting the mouth- 
piece and (6) inhale deeply to open the demand valve and fill 
the breathing bag. The structure that the generic method 
imposes upon the donning task not only presents the chunked 
actions in a logical sequence, but also constrains the discrete 
tasks to be performed in a consistent order. 



INSTRUCTIONAL CONTENT 

The core of information deli vered to trainees learning the 
new method provides a two-stage approach to the donning 
task. First, it presents an efficient position and orientation of 
apparatus designed to make the chunked sequence possible. 
Directions for the first stage are as follows: (1) Kneel. — place 
the SCSR on the floor in front of you — lay your miner's cap 
on the floor and shine the lamp on the SCSR — work with both 
hands; and (2) Loop. — quickly loop the neckstrap over your 
head in order to position it and the case — leave the strap loose 
so you will have room to work — now you are ready to begin 
the 3+3 donning procedure. Directions for the second stage 
divide the chunked sequence into the three critical actions 
necessary to isolate one's lungs, and the three secondary 
actions needed to prepare an individual to escape: (1) activate 
the oxygen, (2) insert the mouthpiece, (3) put on the noseclips, 
(4) then put on the goggles, (5) adjust straps, and (6) replace 
miner's cap. The strategies for transmitting this message were 
varied for purposes of the present study, but the content 
remained the same. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE 
INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES 

Treatment A was a computer-based training program that 
presented the 3+3 method as sequential blocks of information, 
each block followed by a series of questions designed to 
determine whether the individual had learned and retained the 
material. Wrong answers were remediated by looping the 
respondent back through the block from which the question 
was taken. At the end, a short review exercise reiterated the 
critical and secondary donning actions. This approach re- 
quired the most active involvement in terms of verbal learn- 
ing, not only because of the amount of interaction necessary 
to obtain the front-end information, but also because the 
subjects were not cued by either the actual apparatus or the 
paper-and-pencil configuration. In order to reinforce what 
had been learned, instruction was followed by a videotape 
demonstration of a trainer putting on an SCSR as if he were in 
an actual emergency. 

Treatment B was a structured lecture that utilized an 
advance organizer. Using overhead transparencies, the in- 
structor presented the two stages of the new method and 
discussed the rationale behind each chunked action. Students 
were next familiarized with an evaluation form that utilized a 
connect-the-dots configuration and was designed to help 



individuals reproduce the procedure on paper. Trainees were 
then given copies of the form and prepared to watch video- 
taped demonstrations of two trainers donning the apparatus in 
real time. Active participation was required in that the 
students were asked to evaluate the first performance by 
drawing a line to each dot in succession as the trainer com- 
pleted the action that particular dot represented. In a sense, 
this activity competed with the visual stimuli, although it had 
the desired goal of involving the students. At the conclusion 
of the first demonstration the tape was stopped and feedback 
given by the instructor, who accompanied his discussion with 
an overhead transparency depicting an accurately completed 
evaluation form. The trainees were offered another oppor- 
tunity to practice the sequence by following the actions in the 
second performance. Feedback was again provided. The 
instructor closed the lecture with an overhead transparency 
representing a hypothetical evaluation of a poor donning trial, 
and stressed the consequences of doing the critical actions 
incorrectly. 

One of the simplest ways to introduce a procedural task 
is to have a competent person demonstrate the routine. In- 
deed, much SCSR instruction, especially in the context of 
hazard training, consists of just that Accordingly, treatment 
C involved having the trainer who had helped perfect the 3+3 
method talk groups of subjects through the task, step-by-step, 
as he slowly donned the apparatus. This live demonstration 
was followed by a videotape performance of the same individ- 
ual putting on an SCSR as if he were preparing to escape a 
mine fire or explosion. The purpose of the videotape was to 
give the trainees a sense of how a proficient donning execution 
appeared in real time. As is evident, this approach offered 
nothing but the basics. First, it did not require the active 
participation of the trainee in obtaining the front-end knowl- 
edge necessary to carry out the procedural task. Second, it did 
not provide any type of advance organizer to help cue the 
person's memory when it came time for his or her perform- 
ance trial. Third, there was no feedback in terms of reiteration 
of correct steps, or additional information about the conse- 
quences of doing a step incorrectly. 

PERFORMANCE CRITERION 

Ultimately, the act of donning an SCSR is a motor task. 
Therefore, it was determined that the subjects must demon- 
strate proficiency by donning the apparatus. In the real world, 
whether or not one would be considered competent might 
actually be decided by whether one could use the SCSR to 
escape a toxic mine atmosphere. The experimental corollary 
to this practical criterion would probably entail checking to 
see if an individual could isolate his or her lungs and secure the 
SCSR adequately within an acceptable length of time, regard- 
less of the sequence of discrete steps. There were two 
problems with using this sort of indicator in the present study. 
First, an important part of the research focuses upon skill 
retention. It would be very difficult to suggest forgetting as a 



cause of sequencing change or errors if it could not be shown 
that the subject had at least one systematic and error-free 
performance. Second, and just as important, it is known that 
large skill decrements exist with seldom-used procedural 
tasks (Hagman and Rose (8)). It seemed advisable, within the 
constraints of the training situation, to allow as much learning 
to take place as possible. The proficiency level established for 
the annual refresher trainees was a perfect sequence to be 
completed in 90 s or less, with the critical part of the sequence 
to take no more than 45 s. The first trial in which the subject 
recorded a perfect sequence within the acceptable time was 
designated the criterion. It was against this criterion that all 
subsequent performance would be measured. 

EXPERIMENTAL PROTOCOL 

One hundred fifty-five subjects are included in the ongo- 
ing training experiment of which this study is a part. None had 
extensive prior experience with any type of self-contained 
breathing apparatus and had never received hands-on SCSR 
training. In this respect, at least, they were considered to be 
somewhat like working coal miners; there was no preexisting 
procedural knowledge that might influence their perform- 
ance. 

At the beginning of each training class individuals were 
given serial numbers that were to be used to identify them for 
various purposes throughout the course of the research. The 
first use of the serial numbers was to enable the trainers to 
draw lots for random assignment of subjects to groups that 
would have their initial donning instruction conveyed by 
different delivery strategies. Following instruction on general 
hazards, mine maps and escapeways, checkin and checkout 
procedures, and personal protective equipment, class mem- 
bers were randomly divided into two groups and sent to 
separate classrooms. There, they were rotated through three 
assignments: a first aid simulation using either computer- 
based training or a paper-and-pencil format; roof and rib 
hazard identification utilizing stereoscopic viewers and three- 
dimensional slides; and one of the three instructional treat- 
ments for SCSR donning. Each classroom was the site of a 
different delivery strategy. 

An alternating protocol had been designed that would 
enable the trainers to present any two of the three treatments 
to each training class. The treatments being given on a 
particular day depended upon the rotation plan in effect. For 
instance, plan A, which was implemented on the first day, 
specified that the structured lecture would be used in one room 
and the computer-based training presentation would be used 
in the other. Plan B, in effect on the second day of classes, 
offered the computer-based training and the live demonstra- 
tion. Plan C, the strategy for the third day, made provision for 
the live demonstration and the structured lecture. On the 
fourth day the rotation was repeated. 

Immediately following instruction the subjects were 
taken, one at a time, to an isolated room for a donning trial. 



This performance was to serve three purposes. First, an 
analysis of initial attempts would permit an evaluation of the 
effectiveness of the strategy used to deliver the front-end 
donning instruction. Second, the donning trial would provide 
the motor component, which was considered to be crucial for 
proficiency at the procedural task. Third, by requiring each 
person to perform to criterion, the researchers were establish- 
ing a baseline from which to assess the magnitude of forget- 
ting over time. 

Prior to the performance trial, each individual was 
equipped with a miner's belt, cap, and caplamp. An SCSR, 
with its neck strap adjusted all the way out, was placed on the 
floor approximately four case lengths in front of the subject 
The trainee was requested to await a signal from the trainer, 
and at this signal to put the SCSR on as if he or she were in an 
actual mine emergency. No questions were answered or 
information given at this stage of the process. During the 
donning trial, which was performed with no prompts, the 
trainer evaluated the subject's proficiency by means of a 
specially designed connect-the-dots evaluation form intended 
to show sequencing errors and actions that were done incor- 
rectly (fig. 1). A helper recorded times for both the critical 
actions and the secondary actions. At the end of the trial, if an 
error had been made, the instructor pointed it out and ex- 
plained how to do that particular step correctly. The apparatus 
was repacked and the student was asked to try again. This 
procedure was repeated until each individual reached the 
criterion of a perfect sequence within the specified times. 

At the conclusion of the 1986 annual refresher training 
period, individuals' serial numbers were again randomly 
drawn (by treatment) to designate subjects who would get 
followup training and a 90-day retention evaluation. The 
training, given to half the subjects in each treatment group 
who had been selected for the 90-day recall, consisted of a 
quick and simple refresher. The refresher was administered 
30 days before the recipient was to have his or her 90-day 
evaluation. People who had originally received the com- 
puter-based format were brought to a training room where 
they worked through an abbreviated version of their original, 
instruction. Individuals who had gone through the structured 
lecture were visited in their workplaces by a trainer who gave 
each person a copy of the evaluation form and asked him or 
her to reproduce the procedure on paper. After the subject had 
connected the dots to indicate the order of actions he or she 
believed to be the correct sequence to follow, the trainer 
pointed out any sequencing errors and reiterated the correct 
procedure. For those who had originally gotten the talk- 
through and live demonstration, the refresher entailed having 
a trainer visit each person's workplace and do the live dem- 
onstration once again. 

Seventy-two subjects were chosen to participate in the 
90-day retention evaluation. There were 24 individuals for 
each of the three treatment conditions: 12 who had been 
refreshed and 12 who had not. Each person in the sample was 
scheduled to be recalled on or about the 90th day following the 



date on which he or she had been initially trained. At the 
determined time, the subject was taken to a laboratory room 
which contained a videocamera. The purpose of the study was 
explained briefly, and a one-page interview schedule was 
administered by a researcher (fig. 2). Following completion 
of the interview, the subject was outfitted with a miner's belt, 
cap, and caplamp. An SCSR, with its neck strap adjusted all 
the way out, was placed on the floor approximately four case 
lengths in front of the trainee. The individual was instructed 
to await a signal from the trainer, and then to put the SCSR on 
as if he or she were in a mine fire or explosion. During the 
performance trial, which was done with no prompts, one 
trainer evaluated the process while another trainer recorded 
critical and secondary times and videotaped the activity. 
Following the donning trial, the subject reviewed the evalu- 
ation form and then watched his or her videotaped perform- 
ance. A trainer pointed out any errors and suggested ways to 
correct them. The dial was not repeated. 



PROFICIENCY MEASURES 

There were three means of evaluating the performance 
trials. Taken together, they provide a good assessment of the 
effectiveness of those training strategies used to deliver the 
initial donning instruction. First, it was possible to record both 
the number and types of errors committed. This includes se- 
quencing errors, omissions, and incorrect execution of par- 
ticular steps. Second, there were two measures of time: the 
number of seconds a subject required to isolate his or her 
lungs, and the amount of time he or she took to complete the 
entire procedural task. Third, the number of trials necessary 
for each individual to reach criterion were recorded. For 
purposes of this study, data on these variables were obtained 
for the initial donning trials and the 90-day evaluation. Data 
management techniques are discussed in the following sec- 
tion. 

DATA MANAGEMENT 

During the initial phase of the SCSR donning study, 262 
records were obtained for the 155 subjects included in the 
ongoing training experiment The reason there are more data 
records than subjects is that some trainees required more than 
one trial to reach criterion. In addition to these initial records, 
the project staff planned to collect further information on the 
performance of the trainees at predetermined dates during the 
course of the experiment. For this reason the person- oriented 
information system for educators (POISE) data management 
software was chosen. POISE permits ready expansion so that 
additional data may be added, and is flexible enough to allow 
easy interfacing with a statistical package for the social 
sciences (SPSSx), the statistical package selected for use in 
the analysis. Three files are needed to make use of the POISE 
data management system: a description file, a data file, and a 
screen format file. For the present experiment however, it 






Performance Evaluation for 



Date 



1. Did the miner answer the following? 

A. Name the exact place where you started working last shift. 

Yes No 

B. Tell me how to get to the nearest SCSRs from that place. 

Yes No 

2. Connect the dots in the diagram below to show the steps the miner 
took in donning the SCSR. DO NOT TOUCH THE DOT IF HE OR SHE 
DID THE STEP INCORRECTLY. 



Total Time (seconds) 
Oxygen 



Hat on 



O 
Start 



Mouthpiece 



Loop 



Straps 



Goggles 



Noseclips 



Part Time (seconds) 



3. After the task is completed please list any errors that need to be 
corrected and then correct them. 



Trainer's Signature 



FIGURE 1.— Evaluation form for use in teaching and assessing the 3 + 3 donning method. 



Interviewer Date Time 

Subject Name Serial No. 



Treatment Refresher (if yes, date from records) 



1. Person's Age 2. Gender 3. Education (yr) 

4. Person's Job Classification 



5. How many times have you put an SCSR on....... 

a. Like this model? 

b. Another model? (specify all) 



6. Explain the circumstances under which it was donned (emergency, training, etc.) 



7. Have you ever used any other type of oxygen or compressed air breathing apparatus 
such as 

a. Mine rescue gear? 

b. Firefighting gear? 

c. Scuba gear? 

d. Other (explain) 



8. If yes to the above, please explain the circumstance. 



9. Have you ever put on and breathed through a FSR? (include no. of time) 



10. If yes to the above, please give model and explain circumstances 



11. Date of last donning (from records) 12. No. of days ago 



FIGURE 2.— Interview schedule designed to elicit information about trainee background and prior experience with breathing 
apparatus. 



was necessary to have a way to identify individual records. As 
a result, field 1 of the data file was designated a key field, and 
each record was assigned a key number. A key file was then 
created in the add option of the describe program. This file 
made it possible to identify each student and the correspond- 
ing trial number for a particular treatment 

When the POISE files were created, 31 data fields were 
delineated to accommodate the information collected. The 
described fields occupied columns 1 through 438 in the data 
file. Major fields originally defined include those allocated 



for student name, identification number, date of training, 
treatment, trial number, donning sequence, and errors made. 
Fields for recording critical times, escape times, and narrative 
comment were also included. An additional 37 fields were 
added later in order to provide for data gathered during 
subsequent phases of the study. Included are fields for demo- 
graphic information, whether or not the subject had followup 
training, the number of days since his or her last donning 
performance, and numerous flags to indicate any other types 
of breathing apparatus the trainee might have been familiar 
with. 



ANALYSIS 



It was originally expected that delivery strategy would 
have an impact upon the subjects first donning trials, but that 
the act of putting on an SCSR would override and confound 
the effects of the front- end strategy. It was further expected 
that the method of giving the brief refresher would influence 
trainees' performances on the 90-day trials. Specifically, the 
live demonstration was hypothesized to have the greatest 
short-term benefit, because that approach, although the same 
in content as the other approaches, was the only one that 
of ferded the students a live view of the internal components of 
the case as they were talked through the procedure. Also, it 
was the only condition that did not have a competing task as- 
sociated with it. In the area of retention, however, the com- 
puter-based training treatment was hypothesized to have the 
most impact, since it required the highest degree of involve- 
ment in getting the necessary verbal information and was 
followed by a motor performance. Ideally, involvement is 
expected to foster retention (Johnson Q)). Additionally, it 
was expected that the computer-based training refresher, 
being the most thorough, would have a significant influence 
on subjects performances at their 90-day trials. 

INITIAL PERFORMANCE 

In order to begin an exploration of the results, subjects 
performances on the initial trials following instruction were 
divided into three categories: (1) failures — those who did not 
get their lungs isolated from the ambient atmosphere, 



(2) survivors — those who succeeded in getting their lungs iso- 
lated, but who did not record a perfect sequence (the criterion) , 
and (3) criterion performers — those who had a perfect se- 
quence on the first trial. Table 1 is a contingency table that 
presents the observed (or actual) and expected frequencies of 
performances by each delivery system. The expected fre- 
quencies are those that one would expect to occur by chance, 
given the number of people exposed to each treatment and the 
number of performances that fall into each of the three 
categories. 

It is instructive to examine the data in the table. Essen- 
tially, there were more perfect sequences than expected for the 
live demonstration, more survivors than expected for the 
lecture format, and more failures than would be expected for 
the computer-based treatment. Conversely, there were fewer 
than the expected number of failures among those who had re- 
ceived the live demonstration, and greater than the expected 
number of failures among performances following the com- 
puter- based delivery. It should be noted that this phenomenon 
lies in the expected direction: individuals receiving the live 
demonstration were hypothesized to do somewhat better 
initially, while those who were more involved would be less 
likely to forget what they had learned. 

A chi-square (X 2 ) test for independence was applied to 
performance by treatment condition in order to test the null 
hypothesis of no association between delivery system and 
how well subjects did on their initial donning trials. The chi- 
square value of 13.88 is sufficiently large to enable rejection 





TABLE 1. - Chi-square test of performance by delivery 
(X 2 = 13.88, P < 0.01, Cramer's V = 0.212) 




Performance 


Computer-based 
Observed Expected 


Lecture 
Observed Expected 


Demonstration 
Observed Expected 


Total 
observed 


Failure 

Survivor 

Criterion 

Totals 


17 11.9 

20 18.1 

19 26.0 


7 8.7 
18 13.2 
16 19.0 


9 12.3 
12 18.7 
37 26.9 


33 
50 
72 


56 NAp 


41 NAp 


58 NAp 


155 


NAp Not applicable. 











10 



of this hypothesis at the 0.01 level of significance and con- 
clude that there is, in fact, a relationship between the variables 
which is not due to chance. The magnitude of evidence for the 
existence of a relationship does not indicate anything about 
the strength of that relationship, however. Accordingly, 
Cramer's V, a measure of association suitable for nominal 
level data, was computed in order to assess how strongly the 
variables are interrelated. The coefficient, 0.212, represents 
approximately a 5 pet association. Thus, although chi-square 
was found to be highly significant, there is only a very weak 
association between the way in which the 3+3 method was 
presented to the subjects and how they fared in their initial 
hands-on attempts. 

A second measure of performance immediately follow- 
ing treatment is the amount of time it takes individuals to get 
the apparatus on. Given what is known about human behavior 
in fires (Marchant (9J), it is quite likely that most of the time 
available to don an SCSR in an emergency will be spent in 
deciding to take action. When one actually begins the task, 
therefore, he or she should be able to do it rapidly. The most 
important, or critical, steps are those that are necessary to 
isolate one's lungs from the ambient atmosphere. Table 2 
provides information about how quickly these critical steps 
were performed by those who were able to do them on the first 
trial. It should be remembered that those who were not able 
to complete the three critical steps do not enter into this part 
of the discussion. 

A preliminary analysis of the time data was conducted in 
order to test the homogeneity of variance assumption. In 
analyses using the real times, it was found that the null 
hypothesis of equal variances could be rejected. For this 



reason, the time measures were transformed into reciprocals 
(1/X). There is evidence to suggest that reciprocal transfor- 
mation of time measures is inherently good procedure, be- 
cause for some subjects the time taken to complete a task 
might be overly long. A few extreme measures in any one 
group would increase the variance for a particular treatment, 
while the variance for the other treatments would not be 
affected. Transforming the times to reciprocals would tend to 
make the variances more homogeneous (Edwards Q0J). 
Table 2 includes transformations below the actual means and 
standard deviations. 

As can be seen, those in the live demonstration group 
required approximately 3 s less (on average) to get their lungs 
isolated than did those in the other two treatments. An analysis 
of variance (ANOVA) test for differences between means was 
performed in order to determine if there was a statistically 
significant difference in times. The ANOVA model essen- 
tially allows a comparison of the magnitude of heterogeneity 
within samples to the heterogeneity between samples. The 
rationale is that if subjects are given a treatment that is the 
same for everyone in their group, but that this treatment is 
different from the treatment given others, subjects within 
groups will be more alike on that variable than subjects 
between groups (Loether and McTavish (ID). All this as- 
sumes, of course, that the treatments make a difference in the 
first place. 

The F-ratio (table 3), which indicates the region of a theo- 
retical sampling distribution in which two sample variances 
would reside, is calculated by dividing the between-group 
variances by the within-group variances. The larger the F- 
ratio, the farther out on the tail of a particular F-distribution an 



TABLE 2. - Basic statistical data for critical task donning times 



Computer-based 



Lecture 



Demonstration 



Total observations 56 

Students successfully 
completing critical tasks 39 

Mean critical time, s: 

Actual 18.13 

Transformation 0.0595 

Standard deviation, s: 

Actual 5.67 

Transformation 0.015 



41 


58 


34 


49 


19.12 


15.23 


0.0590 


0.0705 


8.69 


4.74 


0.0168 


0.0175 



TABLE 3. 


- Summary ANOVA for critical task donning times on transformed scores 


Source 


Degrees of 
freedom 


Sum of squares 


Mean square 


F-ratio 


F-probability 


Between 

Within 


20 

119 


.0037 
.0325 


0.019 
.003 


6.854 
NAp 


0.0015 
NAp 


Total 


121 


.0362 


NAp 


NAp 


NAp 



NAp Not applicable. 



11 



occurrence would fall. At a certain point in the critical region 
of the distribution's tail, one is justified in rejecting the null 
hypothesis that two sample variances estimate a common 
population variance. At this stage, one may conclude that 
some type of difference exists between some pairs of groups 
in the study. As with the chi-square test, however, the 
existence of a significant F- score does not indicate the reason 
for that score. A second analysis must be done in order to de- 
termine which pairs of group means are significantly different 
from each other. For thepresentresearch,Fisher'sLSD(least 
significant difference) test was used, because it is the most 
sensitive to small differences between means. Table 2 reveals 
that two of the possible pairs of means are the cause of the 
significant F. The pairs are computer-based and demonstra- 
tion, and lecture and demonstration. Computer-based and 
lecture were not significantly different from each other. 

Tables 4 and 5 present the same information for escape 
times (the number of seconds trainees required to complete all 
six tasks in the donning procedure) that table 2 and 3 contain 

TABLE 4. - Basic statistical data for escape times 

Computer- Lecture Demonstration 

based 

Total observations 56 41 

Students success- 
fully escaping 25 23 

Mean critical time, s: 

Actual 65.28 63.94 

Transformation 0.0170 0.0166 

Standard deviation, s: 

Actual 24.88 18.52 

Transformation 0.0052 0.0037 



58 



41 



53.49 
0.0203 



15.76 
0.0059 



for critical times. These tables are self-explanatory and will 
not be discussed in detail. It should be noted, however, that the 
degrees of freedom for the within- subjects source of variation 
is 86 rather than 1 19, as given in table 3. Degrees of freedom 
for within-subjects variation are calculated by taking the 
number of subjects minus the number of groups. The differ- 
ence in degrees of freedom, then, reflects the fact that fewer 
people were able to complete all the procedural tasks than 
were able to Complete just the critical steps. It might also be 
noticed that the total number of criterion performances listed 
in table 1 is different from the total number of people recorded 



as successfully escaping in table 4. This is because a different 
logic was used in compiling the data. The criterion was a 
perfect performance. However, some subjects completed all 
six tasks, thereby receiving an escape time, but did some of the 
tasks out of order. Hence, their initial performance was not 
their last, or criterion performance, although they were con- 
sidered to have escaped. 

A third measure of performance is errors. Table 6 
provides an accounting of errors made on each task by 
treatment condition. An examination of the table shows that 
the two areas where people seemed to have the most trouble 

TABLE 6. - Portion of each group making errors in 
initial donning trial by delivery, percent 

Error Computer Lecture Demon- X 2 P 

based stration 

Loop 1.8 9.8 3.4 3.73 0.155 

Activate 19.6 14.6 10.3 1.95 .377 

Mouthpiece 5.4 12.2 5.2 2.19 .333 

Noseclip 7.1 9.8 1.7 3.12 .210 

Goggle 21.4 26.8 19.0 .88 .644 

Strap 12.5 22.0 5.2 6.29 .043 1 

Hat 7.1 14.6 8.6 1.64 .441 

'Significant at or below P <0.05. 

were in activating the oxygen and in donning the goggles 
correcdy. Both of these omissions are relatively serious. 
Failure to activate the chlorate candle on the Draeger means 
that the apparatus does not provide an initial burst of oxygen 
that the miner uses while activating the bed of potassium 
superoxide with his or her breath. The bed of potassium 
superoxide must then be activated by breathing in and out of 
the air bag several times without the benefit of a fresh oxygen 
supply. Rebreathing one's own air while waiting for the bed 
of potassium superoxide to begin delivering oxygen presents 
the danger of oxygen depletion, which would lead to uncon- 
sciousness. In the same vein, failure to put the goggles on 
properly would result in eye irritation in heavy smoke, and 
might impair a person's ability to escape. A series of signifi- 
cance tests were performed on the errors reflected in table 6 in 
order to ascertain if there were any differences in proportions 
of errors by treatment. As can be seen, the only chi-square 
score large enough to justify rejection of the null hypothesis 
of independence was in the number of errors made in trying to 
adjust the neck and waist straps. 





TABLE 5. - Summary ANOVA for escape times on transformed scores 


Source 


Degrees of 
freedom 


Sum of squares 


Mean square 


F-ratio 


F-probability 


Between 

Within. 

Total 


2 

86 


0.0003 
.0023 


0.0001 
.0000 


4.973 
NAp 


0.0090 
NAp 


88 


.0026 


NAp 


NAp 


NAp 



NAp Not applicable. 



12 



NINETY-DAY TRIALS 

As with the initial trials, subjects performances 90 days 
after having received their hands-on training were divided 
into failures, survivors, and those recording criterion se- 
quences. Table 7 presents the observed and expected frequen- 
cies of performances by delivery strategy. The effect of front- 
end treatment was expected to disappear following the train- 
ees hands-on experiences. The chi-square test for independ- 
ence suggests that this is what happened. An unexpected 
finding is that the brief refresher given 30 days before the 
students were brought back in had minimal impact upon those 
who received it. As can be seen in table 8, there is almost no 
difference between observed and expected performance in 
any of the categories. Although not anticipated, the absence 
of a refresher effect on performance has a straightforward 
explanation: (1) the researchers deliberately kept the re- 
fresher presentation at the level one might reasonably expect 
to be given at a monthly safety meeting, (2) the refresher was 
administered to allow a long period of forgetting under the 
assumption that if workers received these presentations 
monthly, the worstcase would be a disaster just before the next 
scheduled refresher, and (3) everyone in the sample had gotten 
the best hands-on training possible just 90-days before these 
trials. Therefore, most people did relatively well, refresher or 
not 



Time is the second indicator of training effectiveness 
examined in this section. Table 9 shows comparisons between 
how rapidly subjects were able to complete their criterion 
trials and how they did when they were recalled 3 months later. 
As the left half of the table indicates, 58 of the 72 trainees were 
able to complete the tasks necessary to isolate their lungs. The 
standard deviation for their 90-day trials reveals that not only 
had their average critical time increased, but that they were 
much more variable in the amount of time taken to complete 
the tasks. This finding was expected, and reflects what is 
known about skill degradation: forgetting invariably takes 
place over time, especially the forgetting of nonroutine tasks. 
A repeated-measure ANOVA test for differences between the 
two means resulted in a significant F ratio. 

The right half of table 9 follows a different logic in the 
compilation of data, and must be interpreted cautiously. The 
mean times and standard deviations denote how all 72 subjects 
in the sample did from the time their hands touched the case 
of the SCSR until they signalled that they were ready to 
escape. Since the comparisons are being made between 
criterion trials and 90-day performances, the numbers under 
the heading original are derived from a complete and perfect 
sequence achieved by each trainee. The numbers under the 
heading 90-day are, with the exception of 13 individuals, 
obtained from incomplete and imperfect sequences. The 
difference between the two means in this case is not statisti- 
cally significant, but it is qualitatively significant. 



TABLE 7. - Chi-square test of 90 day trial performance by delivery 
(X 2 = 6.40, P r 0.1712, Cramer's V = 0.218) 



Performance 


Computer-based 
Observed Expected 


Lecture 
Observed Expected 


Demonstration 
Observed Expected 


Total 
observed 


Failure 

Survivor 

Criterion 


8 4.7 

14 15.0 

2 4.3 


4 4.7 

14 15.0 

6 4.3 


2 4.7 

17 15.0 

5 4.3 


14 
45 
13 


Totals 


24 NAp 


24 NAp 


24 NAp 


72 



NAp Not applicable. 



TABLE 8. - Chi-square test of 90 day trial performance by comparing refreshed and nonrefreshed subjects 

(X 2 = 0.892, P = 0.6401, Cramer's V = 0.1113) 



Performance 


Refreshed 
Observed Expected 


Nonrefreshed 
Observed Expected 


Total 
observed 


Failure 

Survivor 

Criterion 


7 

21 

8 


7.0 

22.5 

5.6 


7 

24 

5 


7.0 

22.5 

5.6 


14 
45 
13 


Totals 


36 


NAp 


36 


NAp 


72 



NAp Not applicable. 



13 



TABLE 9. - Repeated measures of critical and 
secondary donning times 



Critical 
Original 90-day 



Observations 58 

Mean, s: 

Actual 15.22 

Transformation 0.069 

Standard deviation, s: 

Actual 3.690 

Transformation 0.052 

F ratio: 

Actual 20.14 

Transformation 49.97 

Probability NAp 

NAp Not applicable. 



A series of ANOVA tests were run to determine the net 
effect of the treatment and refresher factors on both critical 
and secondary donning times. The proportion of variation 
explained by the additive effects of training strategy and 
whether or not subjects had received a refresher presentation 
was negligible, and will not be discussed further. 



58 

23.76 
0.015 

15.56 
0.020 

NAp 

NAp 

<0.01 



Secondary 
Original 90-day 



72 

54.68 
0.020 

16.48 
0.005 

10.77 
2.24 
NAp 



72 

66.20 
0.018 

33.95 
0.007 

NAp 

NAp 

<0.05 



The third variable of interest from the 90-day trials is the 
percent of each group making at least one error. Table 10 
shows that, as with the initial attempts after instruction (see 
table 6), the trainees consistently had difficulty activating the 
oxygen and donning their goggles. Strap adjustment was also 
a problem at the 3-month interval, especially for the com- 
puter-based training subjects, and resulted in the only signifi- 
cant chi-square score in the table. Adequate strap adjustment 
is important, because the SCSR must be secured in order to 
allow the maneuverability necessary to enable a miner to 
escape once he or she has succeeded in isolating his or her 
lungs from the ambient atmosphere. 

TABLE 10. - Portion of each group making errors 
in 90 day donning trial by delivery, percent 



Error Computer Lecture Demon- X 2 

based stration 

Loop 16.7 0.0 8.3 4.36 

Activate 20.8 16.7 8.3 1.50 

Mouthpiece 12.5 16.5 4.2 1.27 

Noseclip 4.2 0.0 0.0 2.03 

Goggle 25.0 20.8 20.8 .16 

Strap 66.5 12.5 20.8 15.84 

Hat 20.8 12.5 0.0 5.34 

'Significant at or below P<0.05. 



0.113 
.472 
.531 
.363 
.963 
.0004 1 
.069 



DISCUSSION 



This paper has dealt with one of the most critical and 
nonroutine of all mine health and safety skills: the ability to 
put on an SCSR in the event of an emergency. The results 
clearly illustrate that donning an SCSR is not easy, and that 
miners must have hands-on training if the apparatus is to be of 
any benefit when circumstances dictate its use. What the 
content of this training should be has been resolved through 
extensive field testing: the new 3+3 method has shown itself 
to be an efficient and highly effective procedure. The question 
of how the 3+3 method should be delivered has been ad- 
dressed here: it seems to make little difference (Zsiray (12)) 
as long as the content is presented thoroughly and systemati- 
cally, and followed up with hands-on experience. The prob- 
lem of how often, and at what level, miners should be re- 
freshed is still open to exploration. 

As was mentioned in the "Experimental Protocol" sec- 
tion, there was no overlearning involved in the initial training. 
Once a subject had reached criterion, he or she was dismissed. 
There is evidence that overlearning increases retention, and 
that had the subjects in this study been required to repeat their 
criterion (or perfect) performances several times, there would 
have been fewer failures and fewer errors on the 90-day trials 
(Hagman and Rose (£)). What is not so evident is whether 
anything short of relearning the task, in the same way it was 



learned the first time (by hands-on training), would have 
resulted in significant differences between refreshed and 
nonrefreshed trainees on any of the performance measures 
used here (Johnson (7)). 

There are some interesting implications in both of these 
observations. First, if overlearning is the key to proficiency in 
SCSR donning, there must be a substantial front-end invest- 
ment of both time and effort on the part of trainers and trainees 
alike. With the time constraints of annual refresher training, 
and the scarcity of either training models or real SCSR's used 
for training, the logistics of making this investment become 
challenging. A hands-on session, with remedial instruction 
following the trial, takes from 5 to 10 min per trainee, and 
requires the participation of at least one trainer. Cleaning, 
sanitizing, and repacking the apparatus in order to get it ready 
for the next student entails another 5 min or more (depending 
upon the model being used). When the overtraining factor is 
added in, this time cost increases significantly. Second, if 
hands-on relearning is the key to skill maintenance, it may 
have to be done more often than once a year. Almost 20 pet 
of those recalled for their 90-day trials failed by not complet- 
ing one or another of the critical tasks. The encouraging note 
is that almost 20 pet were still able to do a perfect sequence; 
In a mine fire or explosion, however, a trainer undoubtedly 



14 



wants no failures, and many more people in the perfect 
category. This goal may well require giving at least some of 
the workforce additional training during the year. 

Given the findings of this series of studies to date, there 
are some obvious areas for further research. First, of course, 
the forgetting curve needs to be charted in order to assess the 
magnitude of skill degradation between one annual refresher 
class and the next. Second, the benefits of overtraining must 
be investigated. Third, a determination should be made as to 
what kind of interim refresher, up to and including hands-on 
relearning, would be effective in helping miners retain their 
proficiency in donning the SCSR. Fourth, and most impor- 
tant, a device should be developed that would allow some of 
the training burden to be assumed outside the traditional 8-h 
annual refresher session (if that is needed). There are at least 
two components to this device: (1) an instructional package 



(perhaps a videotape and short computer-based training pro- 
gram) that would enable miners to take self-paced remedia- 
tion; and (2) a simple, durable, hygienic, inexpensive dummy 
SCSR that would have the adaptability to be practiced with in 
situations ranging from annual refresher training classes to 
preshift safety talks. 

In the coming months, the Bureau will be addressing 
each of these problems. The aim is to discover a training 
regimen that will allow miners to achieve and retain profi- 
ciency in donning SCSR's while not intruding unduly upon a 
mine's production activities. It is expected that a major focus 
of this future research will be on the development of a means 
for integrating certain aspects of SCSR training with estab- 
lished practices such as scheduled fire drills and walking the 
escapeways. In this way, not only will SCSR training be 
strengthened, but the routine preparation for emergency es- 
cape procedures will take on an added dimension. 



REFERENCES 



1. McDonald, L., and R.Baker. An Annotated Bibliography 
of Coal Mine Fire Reports (contract J0275008, Allen Corp. of 
America). BuMines OFR 7(l)-(3)-80, 1979, 1 147 pp.; NTIS 
PB 80-140197 (set). 

2. Richmond, J. K., G. C. Price, M. J. Sapko, and E. M. 
Kawenski. Historical Summary of Coal Mine Explosions in 
the United States, 1959-81. BuMines IC 8909, 1983, 53 pp. 

3. Sime,J. The Concept of "Panic." Ch. in Fires and Human 
Behaviour, ed. by D. Cantor. Wiley (Chichester), 1980, pp. 
63-81. 

4. Cole, H., C. Vaught, H. Kellner, and E. Chafin. Miner's 
Proficiency in Donning SCSR's. Pres. at the 13th Conference 
on Training Resources Applied to Mining, Wheeling, WV, 
Aug. 17-20, 1987; available upon request from H. Cole, Univ. 
KY, Lexington, KY. 

5. Vaught, C, and H. Cole. Problems in Donning the Self- 
Contained Self-Rescuer. Paper in Mining Applications of 
Life Support Technology. Proceedings: Bureau of Mines 
Technology Transfer Seminar, Pittsburgh, PA, November 20, 
1986. BuMines IC 9134, 1987, pp. 26-34. 



6. Cole, H., and C. Vaught. Training in the Use of the Self - 
Contained Self-Rescuer. Paper in Mining Applications of 
Life Support Technology. Proceedings: Bureau of Mines 
Technology Transfer Seminar, Pittsburgh, PA, November 20, 
1986. BuMines IC 9134, 1987, pp. 51-56. 

7. Johnson, S. Effect of Training Device on Retention and 
Transfer of a Procedural Task. Human Factors, v. 23, No. 3, 
1981, pp. 257-272. 

8. Hagman, J., and A. Rose. Retention of Military Tasks: 
A Review. Hum. Factors, v. 25, No. 2, 1983, pp. 199-213. 

9. Marchant, E. Modelling Fire Safety and Risk. Ch. in 
Fires and Human Behaviour, ed. by D. Cantor. Wiley (Chich- 
ester), 1980, pp. 293-314. 

10. Edwards, A. Experimental Design in Psychological 
Research. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1972, p. 107. 

11. Loether, H, and D. McTavish. Inferential Statistics for 
Sociologists. Allyn and Bacon, 1974, p. 176. 

12. Zsiray, S. A Comparison of Three Instructional Ap- 
proaches in Teaching the Use of the Abridged Reader's Guide 
to Periodical Literature. J. Ed. Technol. Systems, v. 12, No. 
3, 1984, pp. 241-247. 



15 



THE WORK CREW PERFORMANCE MODEL: 
LINKING TRAINING, ASSESSMENT, AND PERFORMANCE 



By William J. Wiehagen, 1 Michael J. Brnich, 2 
Henry J. Kellner, 3 and Warren E. Lacefield 4 



ABSTRACT 



This paper discusses a conceptual model developed by the Bureau of Mines for evaluating the 
training and performance of underground equipment operators. The need for such a model is 
demonstrated by a review of the limitations of present industrial skills training and performance 
evaluation procedures, particularly as these relate to cost-justifying performance improvement 
strategies. A computer simulation program to profile the performance of underground shuttle car 
operators was developed. Implications are drawn for use of the simulation program as a practical 
diagnostic and prescriptive tool for structured on-the-job training, job design, supervision, and 
management policy. Current avenues of joint research with a cooperating coal company to apply and 
further develop the model are discussed. 



INTRODUCTION 



McKeon (l) 5 estimates that organizations in the United 
States annually spend at least $137 billion for training. This 
training, commonly referred to as human resource develop- 
ment (HRD), is broadly intended to enhance the profitability 
of organizations and improve the quality of worklife (2). 
While the training literature abounds with testimonials re- 
garding the value of HRD efforts, few studies have attempted 
to tie that training specifically to the performance of the 
workers and to ways improvements in performance translate 
into additional profits and/or cost savings within their organi- 
zations {3J. As Cascio (4) points out, "the adage 'millions for 
training but one cent for evaluation' may be an exaggeration 
but is not altogether an untrue characterization of many 
organizations." 

Conducting tightly controlled studies of training value is a 
formidable and expensive task for any organization and the 
shortage of such studies is certainly understandable. Why, for 
example, should a company that has just spent $10,000 



'Supervisory industrial engineer, Pittsburgh Research Center, Bu- 
reau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA. 

2 Mining engineer, Product Research Inc., Pittsburgh, PA. 
'Industrial engineering technician, Pittsburgh Research Center. 
"Research psychologist, Pittsburgh Research Center. 



defining needs and developing and conducting a well- 
thought-out training program spend additional dollars for a 
structured evaluation that goes beyond perhaps a question- 
naire assessing the reaction of participants? Simply defining 
the value of additional information provided by the formal 
evaluation is , by itself, a speculative and somewhat qualitative 
task. If one cannot define the benefit, then there is little 
incentive to spend the money. For those organizations that 
rely on informal on-the-job training (OJT), either for the sake 
of tradition or economies of scale, there is little chance that 
money will be allocated for evaluation. However, money 
saved by taking training outcomes on faith (i.e., not establish- 
ing empirical links between training and profit) oftentimes 
results in HRD activities being the first to be cut when profits 
decline (4). As Campbell (£) points out, the recurring admo- 
nition to 'evaluate' training programs is a gross misrepresen- 
tation of the empirical question. It strongly implies a dichoto- 
mous outcome; to wit, either the program has value or it 



'Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to the items in the list of 
references at the end of this paper. 



16 



doesn't. Such a question is simple-minded, unanswerable, 
and contributes nothing to practical or scientific understand- 
ing. 

These remarks imply that more useful and realistic training 
and performance assessment methods need to be developed. 
More attention should be given to the use of dependent 
variables that reflect cost-benefit components of investments 



in performance improvement strategies (training, job design, 
environmental modification, supervision, etc.) within the 
context of organizational performance. Modeling an individ- 
ual worker's performance within the context of the work crew 
and linking that performance to organizational accomplish- 
ment is one approach that appears to hold much promise from 
both the viewpoint of the individual and the organization. 



MINE TRAINING ISSUES 



Safety and skills training activities have long been recog- 
nized as essential elements in programs for reducing injuries 
and improving productivity within the minerals industry (6_). 
Unfortunately, as in other work organizations as well, the 
impact of mine training investments on injury rates and 
productivity is largely unknown. 

Most mine managers recognize that training is a funda- 
mental condition of organizational life. But the failure to 
allocate the resources to establish the connection between 
training outcomes and organizational goals (e.g., improving 
profit, reducing injuries), over time, diminishes the training 
function and its respect within the organization. This often 
leads to a cyclical pattern of training investments paralleling 
the profit curve. Training becomes a useful notion for creative 
ways to spend or invest money when profits are high. Like- 
wise, when profits decline, many organizations view training 
as an expendable item since it does not pay wages and can be 
purchased if really necessary. 

Perhaps the problem is not so much the role of in-house 
training or the philosophies of management, but rather more 
with how the effectiveness of training is demonstrated. Again, 
the issue is not whether to evaluate but perhaps what are 
suitable criterion outcome measures (i.e., dependent vari- 
ables) when evaluation is done. Typical bottomline evalu- 
ations of training in the mining environment (e.g., Morris (7), 
Adkins (£)) tend to focus on improving both profit (measured 
through productivity) and the quality of worklife (measured 
through injury frequency, severity, and health risk). Often, 
however, these measures are simply too generic and broadly 
defined for single-site studies to be useful in justifying long- 
term, performance improvement programs. The following 
discussion illustrates these points. 

INJURY DATA 

A fundamental problem with injury data as measures of 
training effectiveness is the appearance that the attempt is to 
teach miners not to have accidents. In fact, injuries are rare 
events for particular mine sites. For example, the expected 
frequency rate for a lost- time injury in an underground coal 
mine is approximately 0.06. This means that an underground 
mine employing 100 miners would be right at the national 
average if 6 of those miners sustained a lost-time injury for a 
given year. With such small samples and expected frequen- 



cies, even if statistically significant changes could be shown, 
the generalization of the results would be suspect at best. 
Moreover, using injury data collected long after training to 
measure the effectiveness of that training would imply a belief 
that the treatment (whatever it was) would have more impact 
on performance than extended practice and day-to-day rein- 
forcements that are part of the normal work environment This 
"necessary but not sufficient" rule of training has been redis- 
covered and described by many researchers and practitioners. 

Organizations do depend on bottomline evaluations and 
rightfully should expect training to influence injury rates. 
However, proving this impact is another matter (2), especially 
where experienced miners and machine operators are in- 
volved. The basis for HRD investments needs to be more in 
tune with real purposes for training, e.g., to develop a capabil- 
ity that does not yet exist or maintain and reinforce an existing 
high level of skill. 

For example, Adkins (&) conducted an aggregate assess- 
ment of mine safety training on the frequency and severity of 
lost-time injuries. Using first aid training as a case in point, 
one could reasonably hypothesize that increasing the invest- 
ment in first aid training should have some effect on the 
severity of mining injuries. However, in Adkins' study shown 
in figure 1 , no clear relationship existed at the aggregate level 
to support this hypothesis. In fact, until the characteristics of 
successful training programs are determined, the data provide 
little insight as to why training did or did not appear valuable. 

The data in figure 1 show that there is considerable vari- 
ance from one year to the next in injury rates after adjusting for 
production differences. Clearly, concomitant changes in the 
number of training courses offered do not appear to be 
significant factors helping to explain this variance. While one 
could argue that it is not what you do but how you do it, the 
facts remain that injury data are (1) too broad and too easily 
influenced by other effects and (2) too rare for easy capture 
and explanation using simple analytical methods. 

Many alternative factors that could markedly influence 
injury rates other than training could be advanced. For 
example, a mining firm could significandy reduce its injury 
rate simply by working with the local medical and mining 
communities to encourage individuals to return to the work 
site at the earliest possible date. Differential utilization of 
human factors technologies to reduce or eliminate the conse- 
quences of human error would influence the exposure of 






17 



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CHANGE IN EMPLOYEE COURSES PER 1,000 st 

FIGURE 1 .—Changes (1 973 minus 1 972) in lost days as a func- 
tion of rates of training (7). 

miners to environmental and task-specific hazards at the work 
site and hence the likelihood of injuries. On the other hand, a 
mining firm could have an outstanding training program 
solidly based on job skills and worker competence, yet still 
show no statistical changes in injury patterns. This could be 
due to an already low injury rate or to the law of diminishing 
returns from training or practice, or any one or combination of 
other possible explanations completely divorced from train- 
ing issues. These arguments simply point out the difficulties 
in designing studies focusing upon injury rates. Even well- 
designed research efforts can lack the resolution necessary to 
separate effects due to training and those due to other interven- 
ing variables. 

PRODUCTIVITY DATA 

Mine productivity measures — tons of coal per shift or per 
full-time equivalent employee — are as problematic if not 
more so than injury and loss time measures when used as 
assessments of training effects. A key problem is that produc- 
tivity measures are often based on estimates of efforts rather 
than on calculations of actual costs of producing. Too often, 
only aggregate measures are available. Frequently, this infor- 
mation is based on poorly organized data and/or merely 
reflects static, cross-sectional conditions at specific points in 
time. Moreover, such measures are notoriously insensitive to 
differences in training and provide no help to identify areas 
where human performance could or should be improved or 



where specific methods for upgrading performance might be 
better employed. They provide no clues as to whether a 
performance improvement strategy should be based on better 
teacher training, modified training content and/or methods, 
more frequent skill maintenance training, increased supervi- 
sion, job analysis and redesign, better equipment, or modified 
company policies. Compounding the problem is the observa- 
tion that actual improvements in production and safety are 
rarely the result of a single treatment implemented in isola- 
tion. 

For example, a study conducted by McDonnell Douglas 
(Morris (2)) under contract with the Bureau of Mines, exam- 
ined production rates of continuous miner operators who 
participated in a highly structured training program utilizing 
a part-task trainer in conjunction with structured OJT. Gen- 
erally following Kirkpatrick's model (10) . four different 
training outcomes were studied: (1) reaction (questionnaire), 
(2) learning (pretests and posttests), (3) behavior or training 
transfer (section supervisor evaluations), and (4) results 
(productivity, downtime, and product quality). These re- 
searchers reported significant improvements in organiza- 
tional performance (fig. 2) as well as favorable employee and 
supervisor reactions. 





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ELAPSED TIME, months 



7 



FIGURE 2.— Effects of highly structured training program on 
downtime (top), productivity (middle), and product quality 
(bottom). 



18 



In spite of these positive findings, limitations in using these 
data as measures of training effect include the following: 

1. Performance of other crew members. — For example, 
the miner operator, independent of his or her skill level, cannot 
(and should not) mine coal if the roof bolting operation is not 
providing a secure and safe work environment. 

2. Machine maintenance,. — Factors such as the age of 
equipment and policies and practices regarding preventive 
maintenance also influence downtime, productivity, and 
quality. 

3. The effect of supervision. — In the study (2), section 
supervisors also received instruction regarding operation of 
the equipment and were acutely aware of the type of training 
provided to their employees. In part, this training feature (a 
good management practice highlighted by the needs assess- 
ment procedure) helped assure the success of the program as 
reflected in the data. 

4. Possible changes in the mining environment. — Chang- 
ing roof conditions as mining operations progressed could 
easily have been a more persuasive alternative explanation for 
the data trends shown in figure 2. 

This list represents only a few of the possible threats to the 
validity of an experiment like this one. Many arguments like 
these can be (and were) addressed by good research design 
and prior attention to possible intervening factors. Neverthe- 
less, the need for efforts to control other factors that can affect 
traditional measures, such as safety and productivity, intro- 
duces many difficulties when attempting to use these vari- 
ables as measures of training effectiveness. 

The uncertain impact of training on classic measures of 
organizational performance calls into question traditional 
methods for evaluating training and cost-justifying perform- 
ance improvement strategies. Production and safety statistics 



collected at the job site for the purpose of assessing organiza- 
tional accomplishment are not useful indicators of training 
effectiveness unless they can be broken down and shown to be 
logical antecedents of still more specific sets of employee 
competencies and skills upon which training objectives, in- 
structional methods, and performance evaluation techniques 
are based. This is not usually the case. Instead, job site 
measurements too often tend to reflect not only the perform- 
ance of an individual machine operator but also variability in 
the work environment (e.g., roof condition, seam height, etc.), 
the condition of machinery and equipment, the performance 
of other crew members, the availability of supplies, and so on. 
What is needed for measurement and evaluation purposes 
are cost-related variables that reflect individual competencies 
but also are relatively independent of day-to-day circum- 
stances. Such variables would be related to the primary job 
accomplishment defined for a specific job role or position. For 
example, the primary job accomplishment of a shuttle car 
operator might be described in terms of productivity, as hauls 
300 tons per shift. However, a better measure is, simply, mini- 
mizes the miner operator's waiting time for an empty shuttle 
car. The problem can then be defined in terms of operations 
research and performance improvement strategies (including 
training and evaluation). A cost-benefit assessment of 
operator skill would be based on observing those activities 
under the direct control of the equipment operator that in- 
crease or reduce waiting time for the miner operator. An 
analysis of error patterns and associations between errors and 
factors related to injuries, downtime, and property damage 
becomes a critical element in such an assessment These 
considerations provide the basis for the work crew perform- 
ance model described in the following section. 



WORK CREW PERFORMANCE MODEL 



The work crew performance model (WCPM) seeks to in- 
tegrate procedures for conducting job analyses, evaluating 
worker performance, and using cost information as a basis for 
decision making within the context of organizational goals 
(e.g., profit, safety, growth). Since profit, for instance, is 
directly tied to production cost per unit, key variables used to 
define, measure, and evaluate worker performance should 
emphasize those specific behaviors that can have marked 
impact on the unit cost. Of specific interest are behaviors 
under an individual crew member's control that can be de- 
scribed in terms of deviations from a criterion (e.g., normative 
error profiles or prescribed proficiency standards) and corre- 
sponding probabilities of downtime, injuries, and/or damaged 
property. In effect, the WCPM seeks to focus attention on the 
criticality of performance errors for individual jobs within the 
work crew. By successfully modeling an individual worker's 
performance and linking that performance to the accomplish- 
ments of the work crew, the WCPM provides a potentially 



strong empirical foundation on which to base decisions con- 
cerning improvements in training, supervision, job design, 
management policy, or modifications to the working environ- 
ment (11) . 
Implementation of the model includes provisions for 

1 . Job definition through task, skill, context, and perform- 
ance analyses. 

2. Observational techniques to establish performance 
baselines useful for the conduct of performance evaluations or 
measuring learning outcomes. 

3. Cost linkages between performance profiles and resul- 
tant costs (measures of injuries, downtime, and maintenance 
overhead). 

4. Intervention strategies concerning improvements in 
training, supervision, job design, management policy, or 
modifications to the working environment 

This approach is unique in that it seeks to integrate these 
typically exclusive provisions within a work organization. 



19 



For example, common methods used to define standard oper- 
ating procedures, establish job performance requirements and 
evaluate operators' work behaviors have been based primarily 
on activities deemed necessary to accomplish the job, i.e., 
checklists of appropriate or desired behaviors. Such lists of 
behaviors have been prepared by many developers and users 
of industrial training programs but are typically divorced from 
day-to-day records of production downtime, lost-time inju- 
ries, and maintenance overhead. The WCPM provides a 
framework for integrating various types of data and using 
information from a variety of sources to guide decisionmak- 
ing. An integrated approach also allows the model to be used 
as an evaluation tool with veteran as well as novice equipment 
operators. 

ASSUMPTIONS 

The WCPM rests on a set of assumptions about the nature 
of the worker and the job that need to be made explicit. A key 
assumption is that performance errors lie outside the person. 
This is to say that for the most part individuals make errors 
without intent to incur personal injury, induce downtime, or 
damage property. In other words, employees come to work to 
be productive. Performance differentials between individuals 
are often nebulous and ill-defined (12)- The model does not 
simply attempt to classify individuals as exemplars or average 
performers, but seeks to attend to those common errors or 
differences in error profiles that can markedly affect the unit 
cost Use of the model to profile operational errors and the 
selection of an intervention strategy are tempered by making 
the following realistic assumptions regarding work: 

1. All individuals will make errors, regardless of the level 
of training or experience. Error rates of individuals are 
dependent upon a host of things that may or may not relate to 
the quality of initial training. 

2. Error rates can be observed, measured, and managed. 
Although there may be cognitive components such as errors in 
judgment and decisionmaking, resultant behaviors and out- 
comes can, in most cases, be observed and quantified in terms 
of cost consequences to the organization and the individual. 

These assumptions are the basis for the WCPM and paral- 
lel research work conducted by the U.S. Department of 
Transportation to develop methods for visual detection and 
discrimination of driving errors committed by individuals 
driving while sober versus errors committed by those driving 
under the influence of alcohol (12). 

Thus, at a minimum, the WCPM can be thought of as a 
visual detection method to identify critical components of 
complex job performances such that wide differentials in 
performance for high-consequence tasks are identified and 
treated. Viewed this way, it is possible that the total set of 
errors of the exemplar may exceed the error rates of average 
operators, but the types of errors committed may be quite 
different 



MODEL COMPONENTS 

Taking the operation of a shuttle car in an underground coal 
mine as an example, a job analysis might reveal as many as 40 
to 80 specific activities an operator is to perform in order to 
fulfill the job requirement. The result of the analysis would be 
organized into hierarchies of task and subtask categories, with 
descriptions of the skills involved and the typical working 
conditions for each task. A performance criterion for each 
category, based on typical, practical, or ideal work standards, 
should also be included in the analysis Q4J. 

Job Definitions 

Examples of major task categories for shuttle car operation 
might include preshift inspections, tramming, loading, idle- 
time activities, etc., whereas a subtask in the tramming cate- 
gory might be switching the headlights to the opposite direc- 
tion after reaching the continuous miner. However, the 
practical utility of these lists is limited without associated 
information about the relative frequencies of these behaviors 
and the probabilities that deviations in performance will have 
a direct and important impact on safety and on the unit cost of 
the underground mine section. For these and other reasons, a 
comprehensive model of worker or work crew performance 
must look ahead to the consequences of performance errors 
and the accumulated effects of these consequences on organ- 
izational goals within which work performances take on 
meaning. 

Behavioral Observations 

Behavioral observation is a technique for systematically 
monitoring performance over a period of time and during 
typically variable work conditions. This procedure can pro- 
vide detailed and accurate estimates of proficiency but re- 
quires observers with knowledge of the nature of the job or 
task and experience to make sound judgments about the 
quality of observed performances. In addition, observers 
should be persons whose presence is unobtrusive in the 
workplace. In underground mines, the supervisor or section 
boss is the individual best situated to observe members of the 
work crew. 

Unfortunately, frontline supervisors have limited re- 
sources for the evaluation of performance. Observing and 
rating an operator's performance on 40 to 80 steps repeatedly 
during day-to-day operations strains the supervisor's time and 
opportunity and may not efficiently focus attention on those 
areas of performance that most significantly affect unit cost 
(including safety). As a result, supervisors often evaluate 
performance at the level of tasks rather than subtasks, e.g., the 
conduct of a preshift inspection (10-25 steps), tramming (10- 
20 steps), loading (8-12 steps), dumping (10-15 steps), etc. 



20 



Assuming enough observations are made, evaluating per- 
formance at the task level can yield good estimates of profi- 
ciency, adequate for administrative purposes and for estab- 
lishing benchmark criteria and charting changes in profi- 
ciency as a function of experience or training. Too often, 
however, this sort of aggregate information is of little value to 
the trainer or the employee without further attention to the 
components of proficient performances and the identification 
and consequence of critical errors. It is only through an 
increasing awareness of mistakes and methods to avoid them 
that workers become able to assess and improve their own 
behavior on the job. The WCPM provides a rational and 
efficient means for identifying costly errors and relating these 
to production variables and matters of safety and health. 

Cost Linkages 

A key issue for WCPM development concerns the identifi- 
cation and ranking of observable behaviors that affect unit 
cost A useful performance evaluation model would account 
for correlations and causal relationships among observable 
behaviors and general competencies that contribute to reduc- 
tions in the unit cost and lead to improvements in traditional 
measures of safety and productivity. Such a model would not 
only identify errors, but also suggest the monetary value of 
concrete solutions that could be implemented to enhance 
performance via the elimination of costly errors. In the case 
of the shuttle car operator, the goal is to minimize the amount 
of time that a continuous miner operator has to wait for an 
empty shuttle car. Factors that have negative impacts on 
waiting time include errors (behaviors) that, only as a matter 
of chance, lead to injuries, downtime, excessive maintenance, 
and property damage. Once these factors are identified, the 
task becomes one of (1) enhancing supervisor's abilities to 
discriminate between significant and nonsignificant perform- 
ance errors by associating those errors with their cost conse- 
quences and (2) identifying performance improvement strate- 
gies to reduce the frequency of costly errors at the work site. 
The latter might involve job redesign, supervision and coach- 
ing, formal training and OJT, corporate policy or modifica- 
tions to the work environment 

Computer Simulation 

A computer simulation was developed for use in profiling 
and evaluating shuttle car operator performance. The simula- 
tion is designed to accept input on operator performance 
collected during observations at the work site. The simulation 
begins with a series of questions about each activity associated 
with shuttle car operation. The activities are grouped under 
six major task categories: preshift activities, tramming, load- 
ing, dumping, idle-time activities, and end-of-shift activities. 
After completing one sequence of questions about one activ- 
ity, the user is prompted to respond to the next sequence. The 
simulation requires the user to respond to all questions about 



each activity. The user is prompted to check entries and make 
changes or correct errors within each sequence of questions 
before advancing to the next activity area. 

For each shuttle car operation step, a probability is as- 
signed to reflect the likelihood of a costly consequence if that 
activity is not performed correctly. These probabilities were 
derived through observations, time-and-motion studies, and 
discussions with experienced shuttle car operators and super- 
visors. For each step, a downtime value also is assigned to 
reflect the potential production loss associated with the occur- 
rence of a costly error. Based on descriptive data about 
specific operations at the mine site and on input performance 
data (from observations) as well as the probability and cost 
value associated with each activity, the simulation estimates 
the number of costly errors that an operator may incur over a 
specified time period. Likewise, total estimated downtime for 
the period, along with anticipated resultant costs, can be 
predicted. 

Two versions of the computer simulation have been writ- 
ten in FORTRAN. One operates on a Digital Equipment 6 
VAX minicomputer while the other is designed to operate on 
IBM and IBM compatible personal computers. Both versions 
of the simulation prompt the user for the name of the shuttle 
car operator and for information about the operator ' s perform- 
ance by asking concise questions about each specific activity. 
The user is offered six response choices and selects the one 
that most accurately reflects his or her own level of perform- 
ance. Alternatively, the section supervisor can use the obser- 
vation system and enter this information direcdy as data about 
individual employees. The user is then told what error proba- 
bility and production downtime values have been assigned for 
each particular operation and is offered the opportunity to 
modify one or both of these values. Figure 3 illustrates a 
typical question sequence. 



TASK AREA: 
Activity: 

1. 
2. 
3. 

4. 
5. 
6. 



Pre-Shift Activities 
Checks cable snub location 

Never ( 2% ) 
Seldom (30%) 
Half time (50%) 
Nearly always ( 70% ) 
Always (98%) 
Does not apply 



Please select a number and press return key ==> 

Error probability is 1/100 

Do you think it is correct ? (type Y or N) ==> 

An error will cause 17 minutes of delay 

Do you think this is correct? (type Y or N) ==> 

FIGURE 3.— Typical activity question sequence. 



'Reference to specific products does not imply endorse- 
ment by the Bureau of Mines. 



. 



21 



After the questions related to shuttle car operation have 
been answered, the simulation prompts the user to enter the 
number of shifts the simulation is to run. Next, the user is 
asked for the number of loads the operator being studied hauls 
on an average shift Finally the user is asked to input the 
average cost of a lost minute of production downtime at his or 
her mine. (The default value is $12 per minute.) At this point, 
the simulation input is complete and the routine begins proc- 
essing the information entered. Once processing is completed, 
the output is available as a screen display, text file written to 
disk, or as a printout for later study. 

The output text consists of four pages. The first is a 
summary page (fig. 4) that provides information on the 
following variables: 

1. Total number of shifts. 

2. Total number of trips. 

3. Estimated number of errors. 

4. Estimated number of cosdy errors. 

5. Estimated total downtime (in minutes). 

6. Estimated monetary loss (in dollars). 

The remaining output provides a detailed analysis of the 
simulation run that lists each shuttle car task area and activity 
and indicates the probable number of errors and number of 
cosdy errors projected for that activity. The information 
provided in the detailed output (figure 5) consists of: 

Column 1. Activity description. 

Column 2. Performance rate (rank assigned by observer). 



Column 3. Accident-error (probability of cosdy error 
occurring assigned to each activity). 

Column 4. Number of errors made (estimated totalerrors). 

Column 5. Number of accidents happened (est. costly 
errors). 

Column 6. Downtime loss (in minutes). 

SHUTTLE CAR OPERATOR PERFORMANCE 



Operator: 
Total shifts: 



Paul 
100 



Total tramming, loading, 
and dumping trips: 



5000 
44460 
78 
84 

3770 



Estimated error total: 
Estimated total costly errors: 
Estimated total downtime (minutes): 
Estimated total downtime loss ($): 
See next page for detail 

FIGURE 4.— Typical summary printout. 

This detailed analysis permits the user to rank errors and 
establish a cost base for a proposed treatment. Possible 
performance improvement strategies might consist of combi- 
nations of training, environmental modifications, and 
changes in job design, equipment, supervision, or manage- 
ment practices. 



TRAMMING OPERATIONS 



ACTIVITY 



PERFORMANCE 
RATE 



ACCIDENT 
/ERROR 



ERROR 
MADE 



ACCIDENT 
HAPPENED 



DOWNTIME 
LOSS(MIN) 



Trams appropriately for haul road 

conditions; rounds corners smoothly; 

uses care to prevent banging ribs. .70 

Trams carefully watching for CM 

cable and water hose, roof-bolter, 

and other cables. .70 

Makes certain there is sufficient 

cable on reel to reach CM. .98 



1/1800 



1/100 



1/1500 



1489 



1192 



190 



51 



Slows shuttle car when approaching 
the CM. 


.50 


1/1000 


2200 


2 


Stops behind CM when the boom 
is low. 


.98 


1/1000 


200 





Watches for the ventilation curtain. 


.70 


1/5000 


1835 






20 






FIGURE 5.— Typical detailed printout: Tramming activities section. 



22 



EXTENDING AND APPLYING THE WCPM 



The development of the WCPM, first for shuttle car 
operations and later for other mining machinery and work 
crews, is part of an ongoing Bureau program of research. This 
paper is the second in a planned series of research reports 
describing the development and validation of model compo- 
nents and potential applications for training, supervision, job 
design, and management policy. 

In 1987, with the support and cooperation of a medium- 
sized coal company in eastern Kentucky, Bureau researchers 
completed an initial time-motion study of underground 
shuttle car operations in these particular mines. A thorough 
job analysis was prepared and shared with experienced equip- 
ment operators, trainers, supervisors, and other experts. 
These persons assisted in the identification of critical activi- 
ties and errors with high likelihoods of downtime, injury, or 
otherwise costly consequences. A behavioral observation 
system has been developed and tested to provide an efficient 
way to gather onsite performance data for analysis and profi- 
ciency estimation. In addition, preliminary studies of mining 
company records and data collection methods are underway to 



examine relationships among operator, equipment, produc- 
tivity, and safety variables. The WCPM computer simulation 
has been field tested during regular and special training 
sessions and revisions are planned to improve the speed, 
interactivity, and instructional potential of the program. Other 
components for implementing performance improvement 
strategies that have extended duration and involve structured 
training, OJT, supervision and coaching emphasis, and fol- 
lowup activities are being assembled. 

These developments and extensions of the WCPM are 
leading to a full-scale, longitudinal study and field test in 
several mines with the cooperation of several shifts of miners, 
their supervisors, and the training staff at the eastern Kentucky 
site. This study will involve three 3-month periods of behav- 
ioral observation and productivity data collection and two 
different training intervention strategies. It is hoped that this 
work will further demonstrate the validity of WCPM concepts 
and will provide supervisors and trainers with useful tools to 
assist equipment operators improve safety, proficiency, and 
productivity in their working environments. 



REFERENCES 






1. McKeon, W. J. How to Determine Off-Site Meeting 
Costs. Train. Dev. J., May 1981, pp. 116-122. 

2. Mills, T. Human Resources- Why the New Concern. 
Harvard Bus. Rev., March- April 1975, pp. 120-134. 

3. Goldstein, I. L. Training in Work Organizations. 
Annu. Rev. Psychol., v. 31, 1980, pp. 229-272. 

4. Cascio.W. F. Costing Human Resources: The Finan- 
cial Impact of Behavior in Organizations. Kent Publ. Co., 
1982, 244 pp. 

5. Campbell, J. P. Personal Training and Development. 
Annu. Rev. Psychol., 1971, pp. 565-602. 

6. National Research Council, Committee on Under- 
ground Coal Mine Safety. Toward Underground Coal Mine 
Safety, NAS, 1982, 190 pp. 

7. Morris, C. W., and E. Conklin. Development and Fab- 
rication of a Continuous Miner Training System. Volume 2 
(contract HO377025, McDonnell Douglas Electronics Co.). 
BuMines OFR 140(2)-83, 1982, 79 pp. 



8. Adkins, J., R. Akeley, P. Chase, L. Marrus, W. Prince, 
R. Redick, C. Rogne, J. Saalberg, and L. Szempruch. Review 
and Evaluation of Current Training Programs Found in Vari- 
ous Mining Environments; Volume I, Summary, (contract 
SO144010, Bendix Corp.) BuMines OFR 110(l)-76, 1976, 
67 pp;NTISPB 259410. 

9. Kirkpatrick, D. L. Evaluating Training Programs: Evi- 
dence vs. Proof. Train. Dev. J., v. 31, No. 1 1, 1977, pp. 9-12. 

10. Kirkpatrick, D.L. Evaluating Training Programs. Am. 
Soc. Train, and Devel., 1975, 318 pp. 

11. Wiehagen, W. J., R. M. Digman, and P. E. Goeke. A 
Method for Assessing Equipment Operator Training and Per- 
formance. Soc. Min.Eng. AIME Preprint 83-349, 1983,8 pp. 

12. Gilbert, T. F. Human Competence: Engineering Wor- 
thy Performance. McGraw-Hill, 1978, 376 pp. 

13. Harris, D. E. Visual Detection While Driving While 
Intoxicated. Hum. Factors, v. 22, 1980, pp. 725-732. 

14. Salvendy, G. The Prediction and Development of In- 
dustrial Work Performance. Wiley, 1973, 351 pp. 



' 



23 



ROOF AND RIB HAZARD RECOGNITION TRAINING 

USING 3-D SLIDES 



By Edward A. Barrett, 1 William J. Wiehagen, 2 and Charles Vaught 3 



ABSTRACT 



Unplanned falls of roof and rib have been historically a leading cause of work-related deaths in 
the underground coal mining industry. One possibility for a reduction in roof-fall fatalities is to 
improve the ability of miners to recognize salient visual cues associated with geologic or mining- 
induced irregularities. Such perceptual skills are generally acquired through underground experience 
and/or training and, consequently, will vary considerably among miners. The hazard recognition skills 
of underground workers may be improved in the classroom through effective training if instructional 
aids are used that realistically portray the actual mine environment. Because stereoscopic (3-D) slides 
are a high-fidelity medium that can accurately represent real underground conditions, they are an 
excellent proxy for miners to learn to recognize the characteristics of unstable mine roof and rib. 

Even though worker knowledge of ground hazards may be extensive due to years of mining 
experience, workers may not be competent in assessing potentially hazardous conditions. The truly 
competent miner in the area of ground hazard awareness must have the ability to perceive, recognize, 
and correct dangerous groundfall conditions. 

The state-of-the-art of 3-D photographic equipment and procedures for documenting under- 
ground roof and rib conditions has been significantly advanced by the Bureau of Mines. Most mine 
training departments can now independently provide and regularly update their own 3-D instructional 
materials at minimal cost. 



INTRODUCTION 



The roof and ribs of an underground coal mine confront 
management and workers with a transient situation that re- 
quires constant vigilance. For example, slickensides or slips 
(smooth, polished, and sometimes striated surfaces that result 
from movement of rock on either side of the surface) are one 
of the most common geologic hazards in coal mine roof. The 
normal roof control plan may provide for adequate control of 
small slickensides extending less than 3 ft. However, large 
slickensides must receive additional support, such as wood 
headers, straps, extra bolts, etc. Slips may be exposed during 
mining or develop at a later time, but in either case, they are 
potentially very dangerous and should be treated with extreme 
caution. Remedies for this type of roof hazard and most others 



'Mining engineer. 
Supervisory industrial engineer. 

'Research sociologist. Pittsburgh Research Center, Bureau of 
Mines, Pittsburgh, PA. 



are seldom total or final, and corrective procedures change as 
mining conditions change. 

In room-and-pillar mining, falls of roof and rib may be 
either planned, as in the case of retreat mining, or unplanned. 
Obviously, it is the unplanned failures that present the greatest 
concern. The problem is to anticipate the failure and deal with 
it in such a way that a margin of safety can be maintained. 
Limited data exist with respect to the frequency of the un- 
planned failure. In a study conducted by Peters and 
Wiehagen, 88 of 143 miners interviewed reported that they 
had either been injured or startled by a rockfall at least once 
during the past year (l)- 4 This suggests that unplanned rock 
falls are a relatively common event. 



"•Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to items in the list of 
references at the end of this paper. 



24 



In a recent review of Mine Safety and Health Administra- 
tion (MSHA) accident and fatality reports, it was noted that 
groundfall accidents may have been prevented in many of the 
cases had the worker been able to detect the presence of 
potentially hazardous features and properly assessed the risk. 
For example, the following conclusions were filed by MSHA 
inspectors following two investigations: "the accident oc- 
curred when a piece of undetected roof (horseback formation) 
fell from between the roof bolts causing fatal injuries to the 
victim" and "the contributing factor to the accident and 
resultant fatality was the presence of an undetected kettlebot- 
tom near the face of no. 5 entry". 

Of course, it is impossible to ascertain the perceptual 
capabilities of the persons involved with any degree of accu- 
racy. The visual information available to the miners at the 
moment of the accident may have been occluded (rock dust, 
bad viewing angle, inadequate lighting, etc.), or perhaps the 
persons did indeed recognize the hazards but failed to assess 
the degree of danger. This suggests, then, that the opportunity 
may exist for improvement in the perceptual skills of the 



persons involved in recognizing and responding to hazardous 
roof conditions. 

This paper is concerned with the visual skills of under- 
ground miners in the recognition of roof, rib and floor hazards 
and the utilization of stereoscopic slides for improving their 
ability to perceive these hazards. Hazardous ground condi- 
tions, in most cases, have cues or warning signs associated 
with them and the safety of the worker is highly dependent on 
his or her ability to observe these warning signals. Under- 
standably, miners possess varying degrees of hazard recogni- 
tion skills that have been acquired throughout their working 
years from both job experiences and training. Of course, new 
miners must rely almost entirely on training, at least initially, 
for the acquisition of adequate hazard recognition skills 
needed to safely perform work duties underground. It is 
important for the health and safety of the miner that hazard 
recognition skills be taught and reinforced on a regular basis. 
The manner in which this can be accomplished more effec- 
tively is the subject of this paper. 



GROUND-CONTROL PERFORMANCE DOMAINS 



In any problem solving situation where information must 
be gathered and action taken, the persons involved must 
coordinate and use a number of learned capabilities. Gagne 
and Briggs have summarized these capabilities into five major 
areas: (1) the gathering and recall of information, (2) the use 
of intellectual skills, (3) the development of cognitive strate- 
gies, (4) attitudes, and (5) the possession of requisite motor 
skills (2). The existence and correct use of these capabilities 
as they relate to roof and rib control would lead to the 
anticipation and correction or avoidance of the impending 
fall; the absence or incorrect use of these capabilities would 
result in human error, and as a matter of chance, perhaps result 
in a serious lost-time accident or fatal injury. The following 
account of a fatal accident will be used to illustrate this 
concept. 

On April 2, 1985, a miner helper was killed by a fall of 
roof while installing temporary support for setting line brat- 
tice inby permanent support. The accident involved a 7-ft by 
7-ft by 7-in-thick slab of the immediate roof shale. Investiga- 
tors reported that although the fallen slab was not a true 
kettlebottom, it was similar in shape. It was nearly circular in 
plan view and was bounded on one edge by a slickensided 
surface. One side of the slab coincided with a portion of a 
flattened, carbonized fossil tree trunk that was oriented paral- 
lel to the shale bedding and was approximately 20 in wide. It 
appeared that the rock separated along the outby (slicken- 
sided) edge, along the plant fossil, and along a shale lamina. 
The rock then sheared along the inby edge near the rib. The 
investigators concluded that the victim, who had 36 yr of 
mining experience, failed to detect the loose rock and placed 
himself in an unsafe position while advancing the line brattice. 

The victim, for whatever reason, did not bring an 



adequate combination of capabilities to that particular situ- 
ation to allow him to perceive a warning, recognize the 
warning, assess the risk adequately, and respond in an appro- 
priate manner. Consider how a better mastery of the skills 
patterned from Gagne's performance domains might have 
prevented the accident. Obviously, the following discussion 
is based on speculation. None of the authors was present at the 
scene of the fatality, and the investigators did not couch their 
report in terms of the quality of performance across skill 
categories. In other words, it is not known, empirically, at 
what stage in the process the m iner's failure actually occurred. 

First, a worker obtains certain information from the 
work activity. This information may be gotten by associating 
the present circumstances with prior learned information 
about such circumstances, or it may be derived from the task 
itself, in the form of visual or audible stimuli. In the case being 
discussed, kettlebottoms, while not common, had been en- 
countered on the section. The section was also known to 
contain slickensided roof. Therefore, the victim should have 
associated that knowledge with the fact that he was preparing 
to move past permanent support. It is not known whether the 
slip was clearly visible, but in most cases there is some 
"potting" along a slickenside Q). It is likely that a kettlebot- 
tomlike slab would provide some visual stimuli to the attuned 
observer. 

Second, a worker must use his or her intellectual skills in 
the discrimination of relevant cues inherent in the situation 
and in the recall and identification of an appropriate ordering 
of rules for dealing with those cues. The fallen slab was 
bounded on one side by a fossilized tree trunk, which was 
probably visible, and on another side by a slickenside. The 
visual stimuli should have warned the victim that he was 



encountering a section of nonuniform or discontinuous top. In 
addition, it is customary to sound the roof before entering a 
place beyond the last row of permanent support. Sounding the 
roof may well have provided an audible indication that the 
rock was loose. Assuming that a warning was perceived, the 
next step would have been to recognize it for what it was: an 
indication that the victim should not go past the permanent 
supports because roof conditions had changed. 

Third, a worker must develop cognitive strategies that 
allow him or her to evaluate the consequences of alternative 
actions. There are two types of actions the victim might have 
taken if he had recognized the warning: (1) effective direct 
action or (2) secondary action. One direct action could have 
been to place the head of the continuous miner against the roof 
for extra support, as mandated by company policy. This was 
not done. A secondary action would have entailed issuing an 
appropriate warning to some other worker, such as the miner 
operator. This was not done, presumably because the miner 
helper did not recognize the warning. In sum, the victim took 
no action, although there were almost certainly some cues that 
might have served as an indication that potentially hazardous 
conditions had developed. 

Fourth, a worker possesses attitudes that are brought into 
play in choosing to act on a specific alternative. In this 
incident, it is not known whether the victim examined the roof 
before going inby permanent support. It is known that he did 
not place the head of the mining machine against the top for 
additional protection (a safety procedure that was supported 
by company policy). It is also known that the victim was 
working further from the rib than allowed by the roof control 
plan at the time he was killed. It might be inferred, therefore, 
that the individual chose to take shortcuts, either for personal 
convenience or in order to finish the task more quickly. 

Fifth, a worker must have, to some degree, the motor 
skills necessary to carry out a particular procedure. The miner 
helper obviously had the skill required to set temporary 
supports and hang curtain. More importantly, however, he 
had the skill to operate the continuous miner. Therefore, he 
could have taken the extra precaution of placing the machine 
head against the roof while he was setting the jacks. What is 
not revealed in the investigation is any information about the 
victim's physical condition. It is possible that the manner in 
which he was working was partially to compensate for a 
relative lack of mobility or agility, as he did not restrict himself 
to the limited workspace allowed by the roof control plan, or 
perhaps the task at hand could not be performed within the 
restricted workspace. 

The victim did not, for whatever reason, exhibit mastery 
of the immediate task with which he was confronted, thus 
leading to a fatal error. The question naturally arises as to 
whether he could have been trained to a level of skill in all five 
domains that would have prevented his making the error that 



25 



led to his death. Theoretically, the answer is yes. However, 
simply giving him more training than he had already received 
would not have sufficed. Gagne established conclusively that 
training without evaluation, or a training and evaluation 
program that does not cover performance across the five 
capability domains, tends to be inadequate. Applied to roof 
and rib training, a teaching and testing situation would need to 
allow the full exercise of intellectual skills, cognitive strate- 
gies, and attitudinal capabilities that involve hazard percep- 
tion, recognition, assessment, variable response to a warning, 
and the consequences that these responses produce (4). 

But how can a teaching and evaluation program be 
carried out - especially one that deals with situations as fluid 
as the underground environment? Cole, using Gagne's para- 
digm, began by defining people's task performance in terms 
of verbs that describe the necessary capabilities and the 
conditions under which the performance is to occur (5_). These 
capability verbs show what it is the trainee must do in order to 
perform a particular task to a criterion of mastery. A listing of 
these verbs as they apply to desired performance will clearly 
outline the instruction needed to teach the targeted skill and 
will also reveal the means for evaluating the student' s compe- 
tence. In terms of a problem scenario based on the fatal 
incident discussed, the trainee would exhibit mastery when he 
or she could, among other things: (1) perceive a warning 
embodied in the potting along a slickensided slip, (2) recog- 
nize the warning by defining the condition as a slickenside, (3) 
assess adequately the risk of venturing past permanent sup- 
port at that point, and (4) demonstrate an appropriate response 
in that situation. 

The appeal of designing a training program using a 
paradigm adapted from Gagne is that there is no distinction 
made between teaching and testing. They are one and the 
same. Only the emphasis changes: if the trainer is interested 
primarily in enhancing trainee skill in a given domain, the task 
is instruction. If the instructor is concerned with assessing 
trainee level of proficiency, the task is evaluation. Research 
has shown that administration of tasks that give the instructor 
information about the present proficiency of students, while at 
the same time providing them an opportunity to practice (and 
get better at) the capabilities demanded by the task, is a valid 
approach in several technical fields. Recent studies supported 
by the Bureau have shown that it is an equally valid approach 
in mine training (£). However, providing this instruction 
systematically in a fluid, on-the-job training environment is 
not always practical, nor is it very efficient, particularly for a 
large class of trainees or for the small mine operator. In 
addition, teaching and testing on the job carries certain risks, 
as the penalty for errors may be extremely high. The problem, 
then, becomes one of how to transfer real-world conditions to 
the classroom and selecting an aspect of those conditions on 
which to focus. 



26 



TEACHING AND ASSESSING HAZARD PERCEPTION IN THE CLASSROOM 



In a South African study of 405 fatal gold mining acci- 
dents, Lawrence noted that 75 pet of the fatalities were the 
result of rockfalls Q). In addition, the single biggest category 
of error (36 pet) involved failures to perceive warnings. 
Although it is not known precisely what percent of error 
involves failures to perceive warnings, the same sort of 
situation seems to prevail in underground coal mining in this 
country. During the 5-yr period 1980-84, for instance, 16,352 
groundfall accidents were reported to MSHA. These acci- 
dents resulted in 181 fatalities and caused 5,323 nonfatal 
injuries (8_). It would seem, therefore, that a fruitful area for 
systematic training and assessment in the classroom would be 
the perception and recognition of roof and rib hazards. 

The expected benefit from such an effort would be fewer 
unplanned falls of roof and rib, resulting in fewer production 
delays and, more importandy, a base reduction of injury risk. 
Ideally, there would be a more efficient transfer of learned 
skills and knowledge from the classroom to the mine if 
training were to be focused on the developmentand evaluation 
of specific skills (perception, recognition, and action) com- 
posing competence in the performance of the underground 
task. Since the miner must constandy divide his or her time 
between the task at hand and environmental conditions affect- 
ing both personal safety and the safety of the crew, considera- 
tions of task loading are important. Teaching miners to effi- 
ciently "read" the underground environment, including the 
use of cognitive strategies to direct the decision for action, 
then becomes an important training objective. 

Most safety training programs teaching hazard recogni- 
tion are based on the ideal of enhancing miner knowledge of 
underground hazards, with little if any emphasis on skill 
evaluation. The lack of rigor in pursuing a competency-based 
program aimed at perception and recognition skills has re- 
sulted in a training system overly dependent on real-world 
conditions to both teach and assess the ability of miners to deal 
with roof and rib problems. The only viable dependent 
measure in this case would be the use of injury data and 
investigations of fatalities, as noted in the introduction to this 
paper. There are certain limitations to the use of these kinds 
of data as an index of training effect. For instance, injuries are 



■ 



fairly rare events for any particular mine site; the average 
frequency rate for a lost-time injury in an underground coal 
mine is 0.06. Obviously, an attempt to show the effect of a 
training treatment on these small numbers would be suspect 
and would be very difficult to prove. 

Ideally, the best way to assess the effect of a training 
treatment would be to sample a person's performance in the 
work setting. In the case of ground hazards, however, assess- 
ing an individual's perceptual, recognition, and decisionmak- 
ing skills would be difficult at best The training and evalu- 
ation task would be totally dependent upon the existence of an . 
adequate and representative sample of roof and rib hazards. 
Observer error would be a major obstacle as the behavioral 
implication of perceptual and recognition skill domains are 
not always obvious. 

What is needed in the training and assessment of ground 
hazard perception and recognition, men, is a training device 
that will simulate, to a high degree of fidelity, ground condi- 
tions that the trainees are intended to perceive and recognize. 
The need for classroom simulations of real conditions has long 
been recognized. Gibson for instance, suggested that in 
industrial training there should be devices that would simulate 
particular dangers while allowing subjects to act safely or 
unsafely (9_). The problem with simulations, however, is that 
they often have an artificiality that is difficult to surmount 
Confounding the simulation problem is the enormously 
complex mine environment where the visual cues, in many 
cases, are subde and not readily apparent to the observer. 
These cues may be inhibited because of severe angles of sight 
(common in low-coal mine roof), abundance of rock dust, 
insufficient lighting, etc. 

One attempt to simulate ground hazards in mining was 
carried out by Blignaut, who had subjects perform motor tasks 
while simultaneously looking for "loose rock" in a stope 
simulator (10). Although Blignaut reported that the simulator 
was viewed as realistic by the participants, such a device 
would be relatively difficult and expensive to build with any 
degree of fidelity. A second attempt to simulate ground 
hazards, also by Blignaut in 1979, appears to offer more 
promise to mine safety trainers. 



STEREOSCOPIC SLIDES 



Blignaut attempted to simulate ground hazards using 
stereoscopic slides for training underground miners. The 
results of his study, involving South African gold miners, 
suggest that the ability of underground miners to discriminate 
between dangerous and safe rock conditions can be signifi- 
cantly improved by exposing them to stereoscopic (3-D) 
slides of groundfall hazards. Although Blignaut's results 
were encouraging, they failed to provide a setof guidelines for 
the use of 3-D training aids to teach recognition skills and 
measure perceptual competence. Therefore, the Bureau 



undertook a pilot study to determine the efficacy of using 
stereoscopic slides for ground-hazard awareness training. 

The first step was to generate a set of (3-D) slides of 
hazardous roof and rib conditions typically found in mines 
throughout the major coal producing areas of the eastern 
United States. For example, 3-D slides were taken of specific 
geologic features, such as joints, bedding planes, and ketde- 
bottoms; inadequate support conditions, such as spading ribs. 
loose or hanging bolts, and incorrect bolting patterns: and 
loose rock occurrences such as overhangs. 



27 



These 3-D slides were then used in an experiment involv- 
ing a group of 20 experienced miners (minimum 1 yr at the 
face) and 20 persons with very limited or no underground 
experience. The slides with embedded hazards were judged 
to be rather common and somewhat obvious hazards by roof 
and rib experts. The subjects were presented with 15 slides of 
varying roof and rib conditions and asked to describe what, if 
anything, in the slide appeared hazardous. Half of each of 
these two groups of miners were shown the areas of roof and 
rib using 3-D slides, and the other half were shown the same 
areas using identical, standard two-dimensional (2-D) slides. 
A 2 by 2 analysis of variance was applied to determine the 
significance of the main effects of level of experience and 
mode of stimulus presentation. Both main effects were found 
to be highly significant (p <0.01), indicating that (1) in 
comparison to the group of persons with very limited or no 
underground experience, the proportion of correct responses 
was significantly higher among those with at least 1 yr of 
experience working at the face, and, (2) in comparison to the 



group who viewed the 2-D slides, the proportion of correct 
responses was significantly higher among those who viewed 
the 3-D slides. 

The first of these two findings suggests that significant 
differences exist between the ability of new versus experi- 
enced miners to correctly identify groundfall hazards. How- 
ever, on the average, even the experienced miners failed to 
correcdy identify 2.5 out of 15 hazards. These data suggest 
that better training in recognizing groundfall hazards could be 
beneficial for all miners, and that it would have the greatest 
impact on miners who have little or no experience working at 
the face. 

The second finding strongly suggests that 3-D slides are 
more effective than 2-D slides for the purposes of illustrating 
groundfall hazards. Combined, the findings suggest that 3-D 
slides are a more effective tool for illustrating groundfall 
hazards than 2-D representations and, therefore, offer promise 
for enhancing the perceptual skills of the miner. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC EQUIPMENT 



Authentic commercially available stereoscopic-slide 
cameras are 35-mm slidefilm cameras (print film cannot be 
used in these cameras to make stereoprints) that have dual, 
matched objective lenses with mechanically coupled iris 
diaphragms. The distance between the lenses is fixed at 2.75 
in. They have a normal range of aperture settings, shutter 
speeds, hot-shoe adapters for flash cords, and focus adjust- 
ments . The slidefilm is commercially developed and mounted 
by an experienced person who is familiar with left and right 
balance of stereo pairs. 

Stereoscopic slides can either be projected on a screen or 
viewed through hand-held devices. The equipment required 
to project 3-D slides on a screen includes a 3-D slide projector 
and a lenticular beaded screen. The projected image is not as 
clear as that observed in a hand-held 3-D viewer. Polarized 
glasses must be worn to see projected slides in 3-D, but the 
glasses are not required with a hand-held viewer. 

Because of decreasing demand as well as limited utility, 
the manufacture of 3-D slide cameras terminated over 30 yr 
ago. However, the cameras may still be purchased from used- 
equipment and secondhand photographic supply stores; some 
have even become collector's items among camera enthusi- 
asts. In addition to uncertain availability, the original 3-D 
cameras have several operational limitations. These include 
built-in lenses that cannot be interchanged, antiquated manual 
controls, and difficult focusing adjustments (particularly in 
the minimally lighted underground environment). 

To overcome the limitations of 3-D cameras noted above, 
the Bureau designed and fabricated a stereoscopic 35-mm 
camera slide bar for producing 3-D slides using just one 35- 
mm, single lens reflex camera. This apparatus can be used to 
take pairs of individual slide chips (left slide and right slide) 
from two preset locations that correspond exacdy to the 
interocular distance (2.75 in) used on the dual lens stere- 
ocameras. 



The unit basically consists of three horizontal bars situ- 
ated one above the other (fig. 1). The lower bar is used for 
mounting on a tripod and for holding a simple line level. The 
middle bar holds the 35-mm camera, which is attached to a 
track-mounted sliding plate, and the upper bar supports the 
strobe light that is secured at a location central to each camera 
position. 

The 35-mm slide chips can be mounted individually in 
slide holders, in the conventional manner, or combined in 
specially made stereomounts for viewing in the hand-held 
viewer. The matched slide pairs can be projected on a 
lenticular screen, from any convenient distance, using two 
conventional slide projectors positioned vertically (fig. 2). 
The lenses used on the projectors should be identical and 
polarizing filters are required for each lens. If hand-held 
viewers are used, then the 35-mm film chip pairs are mounted 
in aluminum stereoslide holders and cardboard stereomounts. 
Both of these items are available in photographic supply 
stores. The mounting procedure is quite simple and can be 
accomplished with very few problems by a novice. 
Alignment of the film chips in the mounts is critical and must 
be done carefully. It will be obvious when the proper stereo 
balance of the slide chips is achieved because the image in the 
viewer will have depth and be clear throughout. 

The equipment and procedures for generating stere- 
oscopic slides are quite basic and involves just a minimum 
investment of resources. Fabrication of the Bureau-developed 
slide bar is relatively simple and inexpensive (detailed design 
drawings can be obtained from the author). The slide bar, 
unique in its own design, has several operating features that 
insure quality slides that have proper lighting and adequate 
stereo-balance. These include a central, fixed flash or strobe 
light location, a track-mounted camera slide plate, use of a 
single 35-mm camera, and a leveling device. 



28 





FIGURE 1 .—Slide bar for use in generating stereoscopic slides 
with conventional 35-mm camera. 



FIGURE 2.— Two slide projectors positioned vertically on two- 
tier stand. 



USING STEREOSCOPIC SLIDES IN THE CLASSROOM 



In order to create optimum interest among trainees and to 
motivate them for maximum involvement in the learning 
process, mine trainers may prefer to generate customized sets 
of 3-D slides of the groundfall hazards found throughout their 
own mines. The customized slides, perhaps even depicting 
hazards that exist in the current working sections, could be 
assembled and updated to meet training objectives by in- 
house personnel. 

A typical classroom training session could begin with 
each trainee having a hand-held viewer and the same set of 
slides depicting the ground hazards selected for study. In a 
group discussion format, everyone would observe the same 
slide and talk about the important features. For example, a 
kettlebottom is defined as a smooth, rounded, sometimes oval 
piece of rock, cylindrical in shape, the surface of which 
usually has a striated or slickensided appearance. From this 
definition, the cues that the miner would be taught to look for 
in recognizing this potentially hazardous feature are as fol- 
lows: rounded piece of rock within mine roof, different in 
nature from surrounding roof material, and shining or glossy 
edge. Since kettlebottoms can range from a few inches in 
diameter to more than 4 ft, it is important for the worker to be 



cognizant of the entire viewing area of mine roof in order to, 
perhaps, notice one small, isolated kettlebottom. To address 
this latter concern, expanded views, beyond the individual 
feature, may need to be developed (not necessarily 3-D) and 
used to supplement the training lesson. This would likely 
involve different angles, different degrees of lighting, and 
multiple distances from the target area. 

In addition to being used for training, 3-D slides could be 
utilized for screening miners, before or after instruction, to 
determine their level of competence in recognizing roof and 
rib hazards. By asking miners to identify the presence of 
hazards in a series of 3-D slides, one can determine (1) which 
types of hazards are not recognized by a significant number of 
people, and (2) which miners seem to be particularly deficient 
in their ability to recognize groundfall hazards. Given this 
baseline information, the trainer can better determine which 
types of groundfall hazards need to be emphasized in the 
present or future training, and which miners need additional 
instruction to become proficient at recognizing the hazards. 
Because of the high fidelity of 3-D slides and the realism thus 
portrayed, there can be no confusion in the process of accu- 
rately identifying hazards. 






29 



DISCUSSION 



The fact that mine workers can improve their ground- 
hazard awareness skills for recognizing potentially dangerous 
conditions was demonstrated by Blignaut using 3-D slides as 
an experimental tool. This development, combined with the 
experimental results in the Bureau's field evaluation studies, 
indicates that 3-D slides have the potential to be a very 
effective training aid. It is unlikely that conventional means 
for representing roof and rib hazards would provide similar 
results. Drawings, photographs, and standard slides provide 
visual cues in two dimensions only; consequently, realism is 
lost The only other alternative for transferring basic concepts 
of ground control to the miner is to go to the underground 
workplace and point out each detail as it is encountered. Of 
course, the dilemma here is that many hazards will never get 
taught simply because they do not exist in a particular mine or, 
if they do exist, their nature will be different from that under 
study. For example, consider the condition known as cutter 
roof. Cutter roof will initially appear as a short separation in 
the mine roof running in the direction of the opening along the 
rib line and will eventually develop into much longer separa- 
tions that run on both sides of the entry. Ultimately, an entire 
area affected by cutter roof could fail in shear and fall in at the 
roof bolt horizon level. Obviously, all stages of this hazard do 
not exist in any given mine at one particular time. 

The miner who is competent in all aspects of ground 
control is one who consistently demonstrates knowledge, 
procedures, and skill in the perception, recognition, and 
correction of every potentially hazardous condition. Using 
the preceding example, the miner must be able to observe the 
preliminary indicators of cutter roof as well as any of the 



intermediate signs, and then respond appropriately. This 
pattern of performance corresponds with that developed by 
Gagne and, in effect, suggests the structure necessary for 
completely training the miner. 

Training for competency in this expanded mode has 
further payoffs. The obvious benefit of improved safety in the 
mine is amended by a more accurate account of the allocation 
of training resources. Management can see where the empha- 
sis is being placed and what the results are. 

The use of 3-D slides for conducting ground-hazard 
training in the classroom presents an ideal learning situation. 
No other inexpensive and readily available classroom training 
aids that have the same fidelity as 3-D slides could be utilized 
for this purpose. The slides ostensibly take the miner into the 
mine without leaving the classroom. This feature makes them 
valuable as a training aid because training effectiveness and 
training transfer depend on materials that physically simulate 
the real-world environment. 

Once an acceptable level of proficiency is established, 
poor recognition skills can be ruled out as a reason for 
continuing groundfall hazard problems in the working area. 
Other causes would then need to be considered. For example, 
miners may not know when to correct groundfall hazards or 
may be insufficiently motivated to correct them. Strategies 
for dealing with these problems include training designed to 
ensure that miners know when potential hazards become 
actual problems, training designed to emphasize how danger- 
ous it is if they fail to correct such hazards, and establishing a 
system of rewards to motivate miners to take the time to look 
for groundfall hazards and correct them. 



SUMMARY 



Evidence exists that miners often fail to recognize areas 
of hazardous roof and rib. Mine safety and training personnel, 
miners, and ground- control specialists who have examined 3- 
D slides of groundfall hazards report that the slides could 
significantly improve miner ability to identify hazardous roof 
and rib. There are a number of advantages to using 3 -D slides 
instead of conventional slides or other two-dimensional tech- 
niques for illustrating groundfall hazards to miners. Perhaps 
the most important advantage is that 3-D slides provide a more 
realistic and accurate representation of roof and rib hazards. 

From a motivational standpoint, another advantage to 
stereoscopic slides is that, because of their novelty, they are 
intrinsically interesting to most viewers. Miners are more 



enthusiastic about training that involves 3-D slides and seem 
to enjoy looking at this type of slide. Based on the responses 
of various miners and mine trainers, it appears that 3-D slides 
would be very well received as a training aid throughout the 
industry. Also, the equipment needed to generate and use 
stereoscopic slides for training is relatively inexpensive and 
easy to obtain and operate. 

In conclusion, the information the Bureau has gathered 
on the feasibility and effectiveness of using 3-D slides as a 
training aid strongly suggests that it is both feasible and 
advisable for the coal mining industry to use stereoscopic 
slides of hazardous roof and rib conditions as an aid to 
improving miner ability to recognize potential hazards. 



30 






REFERENCES 



1. Peters, R. H., and W. J. Wiehagen. Human Factors 
Contributing to Groundfall Accidents in Underground Coal 
Mines: Workers' Views. BuMines IC 9127, 1987, 24 pp. 

2. Gagne.R. M., andL. J. Briggs. Principles of Instruc- 
tional Design. Holt, 2d ed. 1979, pp. 117-135. 

3. Chase, F. and G. Sames. Ketdebottoms: Their 
Relation to Mine Roof and Support. BuMines RI 8785, 1983, 
12 pp. 

4. University of Kentucky. Exercises for Teaching 
and Assessing Non-Routine Mine Health and Safety Skills. 
Ongoing BuMines contract HO348040; for inf. contact W.J. 
Wiehagen, BuMines, Pittsburgh, PA. 

5. Methods for Assessing Critical Non-Routine Mine 
Health and Safety Skills. Ongoing BuMines contract 
H0348040; for inf. contact W. J. Wiehagen, BuMines, Pitts- 
burgh, PA. 

6. DiCanio, D. G., A. H. Nakata, D. Colvert, and E. G. 



LaVeque. Accident Cost Indicator Model To Estimate Costs 
to Industry and Society From Work-Related Injuries and 
Deaths in Underground Coal Mining. Volume III. Support- 
ing Data (contract J0255031, FMC Corp.). BuMines OFR 
39(3)-77, 1976, 104 pp.; NTIS PB 264 440. 

7. Lawrence, A. C. Human Error As a Cause of 
Accidents in Gold Mining. J. Saf. Res., 1974, pp. 74-88. 

8. Barrett, E. Behavioral Aspects of Roof/Rib Injuries 
- Implications for Training Utilizing Stereoscopic Photogra- 
phy. Paper in Proceedings of Fifth Conference on Ground 
Control in Mining (WV Univ., Morgantown, WV., June 1 1- 
13, 1986). WV Univ., 1986, pp. 213-220. 

9. Gibson, E.J. Principles of Perceptual Learning and 
Development Meredith, 1969, pp. 163-193. 

10. Blignaut,C. The Perception of Hazard: The Contri- 
bution of Signal Detection to Hazard Perception. Ergonom- 
ics, v. 22, 1979, pp. 1177-1183. 






31 



HUMAN FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO GROUNDFALL ACCIDENTS IN 
UNDERGROUND COAL MINES: WORKERS' VIEWS 

By Robert H. Peters 1 and William J. Wiehagen 2 



ABSTRACT 

Groundfall accidents are the most common cause of accidental death among underground coal 
miners, and in many mines, they are a significant part of the total cost of operating the mine. This paper 
presents results of a Bureau of Mines study on barriers that may prevent miners from correcting and 
avoiding groundfall hazards. Such barriers stem from four basic types of problems: (1) inability to 
recognize groundfall hazards, (2) inability to correct groundfall hazards, (3) lack of motivation to 
search for groundfall hazards, and (4) lack of motivation to correct groundfall hazards. 

Interviews were conducted with 143 miners and 9 Mine Safety and Health Administration (MS HA) 
coal mine roof and rib inspectors to determine the perceived importance of these four categories of 
barriers, and what should be done to overcome them. The issues covered in these interviews were (1) 
why miners sometimes fail to do anything about potential roof hazards, (2) walking beneath 
unsupported roof, and (3) what should be done to help miners to avoid rock fall injuries. Participants' 
beliefs about these issues were determined by asking them to respond to a series of open-ended and 
forced-choice questions. The frequencies with which response categories were chosen to reply to 
each question are presented. It is concluded that those who work underground consider all four types 
of barriers to be important contributors to groundfall accidents. 

INTRODUCTION 



In many underground coal mines, the economic costs 
associated with falls of roof and rib are a substantial propor- 
tion of the total costs of operating the mine. During the 1982- 
86 5-yr period, 14,863 groundfall accidents were reported to 
the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). 

These accidents often require that labor, supplies, and 
equipment be diverted from coal production and used for 
cleanup, recovery and repair of mine equipment, and resup- 
port of the mine roof. The costs of these activities are quite 
substantial. But of even greater significance are the intangible 
losses and the emotional anguish suffered by the families of 
miners who have been killed or seriously disabled by ground- 
falls. During the 1982-86 period, groundfall accidents 



claimed the lives of 154 coal miners and caused 4,249 nonfatal 
injuries. According to an accident cost model, the direct cost 
of these fatalities and injuries alone exceeds $200 million. 3 
(Clearly, there is a great need to further reduce the number of 
miners being injured and killed by groundfall accidents.) 

The Bureau performed the research described in this 
report in order to (1) better define the types of barriers 
preventing miners from correcting or avoiding groundfall 
hazards, (2) provide direction for future research, and (3) 
identify promising approaches for preventing this type of 
accident. Data were collected using structured interview 
guides. Interviews were conducted with various personnel 
from three underground coal companies (nine sites) and with 
MSHA coal mine roof and rib inspectors. 



'Research psychologist. 
'Supervisory industrial engineer. 
Bureau of Mines, Pittsburgh, PA. 



Pittsburgh Research Center, 



'DiCanio, D. G., A. H. Nakata, D. Colvert, and E. G. LaVeque. 
Accident Cost Indicator Model to Estimate Costs to Industry and 
Society From Work-Related Injuries and Deaths in Underground 
Coal Mining. Volume DI. Supporting Data (contract J0255031, 
FMC Corp.). BuMines OFR 39(3)-77, 1976, 104 pp.; NTIS PB / 
264 440. 



32 



BARRIERS TO MINER PREVENTION OF GROUNDFALL ACCIDENTS 



Geological factors relating to the inherent stability of the 
roof and rib influence the likelihood of a groundfall accident 
Although geological history cannot be changed, there are 
several other factors that influence the probability of ground- 
fall accidents over which people potentially have some con- 
trol. This study focuses primarily on assessing the things 
miners can potentially do to avoid groundfall accidents, and 
on gaining a better understanding of the types of barriers that 
prevent them from performing these activities. 

Figure 1 highlights a conceptual framework for address- 
ing these barriers. The model assumes that in order for miners 
to do an effective job of preventing groundfall injuries, they 
must not only recognize the existence of the hazard but also 
must be willing and able to take corrective action. Barriers can 
be differentiated on the basis of whether they occur at the stage 
of hazard recognition or hazard correction, and on the basis of 
whether they are due to miner lack of ability or lack of moti- 
vation." Data were collected to determine whether the people 
who work underground consider the barriers identified in 
figure 1 to be important contributors to groundfall accidents. 



Source of 
barrier 



Ability 



Motivation 



Stage of barrier's occurrence 
Recognition Correction 



Inability to 

recognize 

groundfall hazards 



Lack of motivation 

to search for 
groundfall hazards 



Inability to 

correct 

groundfall hazards 



Lack of motivation 

to correct 
groundfall hazards 



FIGURE 1.— Barriers to miner prevention of groundfall 
accidents. 



METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION 



Miners and MSHA inspectors were asked to respond to a 
variety of questions about the causes and prevention of 
groundfall accidents in one-on-one interviews. Interviewers 
asked questions concerning the following issues: (1) Recent 
experiences with roof falls, (2) why miners sometimes fail to 
do anything about potential roof hazards, (3) walking beneath 
unsupported roof, (4) the degree to which various changes 
would help miners to avoid rock fall injuries. Participants 
were asked to respond to both open-ended and forced-choice 
questions. 

Data were collected from February 1984 to April 1985. A 
total of 143 employees from three underground coal mining 
companies located at nine sites in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and 
Kentucky participated in the study. All mines in this study 
were using the room-and-pillar method of extraction and 
continuous mining machinery. Table 1 breaks down the total 
sample of mine employees by job title. The average length of 
time spent working as an underground coal miner was 10.5 yr. 
Of the 143 employees in the sample, 85 pet had some experi- 
ence working as a bolter or bolter helper. All 143 employees 
work underground on a daily basis. Data were also collected 
from nine MSHA coal mine roof and rib inspectors using the 
instruments and methods previously described. 



4 For a more detailed discussion of this model see: Peters, R. H., and 
W. J. Wiehagen. Human Factors Contributing to Groundfall Acci- 
dents in Underground Coal Mines: Workers' Views. BuMines IC 
9127,1987,24 pp. 



TABLE 1. - Breakdown of mine employees 
interviewed, by job title 



Job title 



Number 



Belt worker 4 

Bridge worker 2 

Continuous miner operator 16 

Continuous miner operator helper 10 

General inside labor 10 

Mechanic 1 1 

Roof bolter operator 27 

Roof bolter helper 10 

Scoop operator 2 

Section supervisor 14 

Shuttle car operator 25 

Supply worker 2 

Timber worker 5 

Utility worker 5 

Total 143 



; 



33 



PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS 



This section presents participants' responses to interview 
questions concerning nonresponse to possible roof hazards, 
walking beneath unsupported roof, and the effect of various 
changes on preventing groundfall accidents. Simple frequen- 
cies of the response categories miners chose to answer each 
forced-choice question in the interview are presented. Sum- 
maries of responses to several open-ended questions are also 
presented. 

NONRESPONSE TO POSSIBLE ROOF 
HAZARDS 

Each participant was initially asked to respond to an open- 
ended question on this topic. This question was followed 
by eight forced-choice questions. 

Open-Ended Questions 

Participants were asked for their opinions about why 
miners sometimes neglect correcting hazardous roof condi- 
tions. This question was asked as follows: 

At one time or another, most miners have seen 
areas of the roof that look like they may not be 
entirely safe, but for some reason, do not do 
anything about it. What are the major reasons 
why miners sometimes fail to do anything about 
potential roof hazards? 

The miners' replies and (in parentheses) number of 
respondents were — 

In a hurry (22) 

Laziness (15) 

The area is traveled infrequently (11) 

Too busy doing other work (10) 

Don't want to delay production (10) 

Careless or don't care (8) 

Don't believe it's hazardous (7) 

It's not their job (7) 

Complacency (6) 

I know it's there so I'll just stay away from it (4) 

Tools or supplies not readily available (4) 

Afraid of getting hurt (4) 

Put off doing it but forget (3) 

Lack of knowledge or experience (2) 

Taking shortcuts (2) 

Not important; it's just "extra work" (2) 

Inspectors gave several different types of responses to 
this question. The most common response was that miners do 
not think it is worth the time and effort required; i.e., they are 
insufficiently motivated to perform this type of activity. 



Another reason frequently mentioned by mine inspectors 
was that miners do not realize how dangerous the hazard really 
is. Several inspectors also said that because nothing usually 
happens to miners who occasionally decide to risk working 
beneath hazardous roof, many tend to become complacent. 
Apparently, the failure to experience negative consequences 
for deviating from a safe work practice may promote contin- 
ued deviation. Other factors believed by mine inspectors to 
contribute to miner failure to correct roof hazards were (1) 
miner inattentiveness caused by preoccupation with off-the- 
job problems (e.g., family, medical) and (2) the temptation to 
let the next shift deal with the hazards when it is close to 
quitting time. 

Forced-Choice Questions 

Miners were asked to indicate the extent to which they 
agreed or disagreed that each of a list of reasons explains why 
miners might sometimes decide not to do anything about 
potentially hazardous roof conditions. The reasons were ~ 

1 . They do not have the tools or materials with them that 
are needed to correct the roof problem. 

2. They think it is someone else's responsibility to take 
care of roof problems. 

3. They do not want to risk getting hurt while fixing the 
roof. 

4. They dislike doing the type of work necessary to 
correct the roof problem. 

5. They believe that their supervisor thinks that taking 
care of roof problems is unimportant. 

6. They do not know how to correct roof problems. 

7. They do not realize how dangerous roof problems 
really are. 

8. They do not take enough time to look for roof prob- 
lems. 

A six-point rating scale ranging from strongly agree to 
strongly disagree was used to respond to each statement. The 
rating scale contained the following options: 

Strongly agree 
Agree 

Slightly agree 
Slightly disagree 
Disagree 
Strongly disagree 

The number of miners who chose each point on the rating 
scale to respond to each of the eight questions in this section 
is presented in table 2. The percentage of miners in each 
subgrouping who chose slightly agree, agree, or strongly 
agree to answer the question are summed to allow one to 



L 



34 



TABLE 2. - Rank ordering of reasons for neglect of roof fall hazards, according 
to percentage of persons expressing agreement 



Total 

agree 

responses 



Strongly Agree Slightly Slightly Disagree Strongly 

agree agree disagree agree 



A-8. They do not take enough 
time to look for roof problems 80.7 

A-7. They do not realize how 
dangerous roof problems really are 68.4 

A-4. They dislike doing the 
type of work necessary to 
correct the problem 57.7 

A-2. They feel it is someone 
else's responsibility 51.5 

A-l. They do not have the 
tools or materials to 
correct the problem 51.0 

A-3. They do not want to 
risk getting hurt 47.9 

A-6. They do not know how 
to correct the roof problem 36.5 

A-5. They believe that their 
section supervisor thinks that 
taking care of roof problems is 
unimportant 11.3 



11.4 



13.7 



9.2 



7.1 



5.0 



2.9 



0.7 



55.0 



43.2 



31.1 



32.4 



32.6 



25.0 



20.7 



7.8 



14.3 



11.5 



18.5 



11.3 



17.9 



12.9 



2.8 



5.0 



2.9 



5.2 



9.9 10.6 



7.8 



6.4 



5.7 



2.8 



14.3 



20.9 



33.3 



31.7 



32.6 



40.0 



45.7 



56.7 



0.0 



7.9 



3.7 



6.3 



8.5 



5.7 



12.1 



29.1 



quickly understand the general results of the data without 
having to perform additional calculations. 

With the exception of statement A.5, a significant num- 
ber of miners agreed that each of the factors listed in this 
section are important deterrents to the prevention of ground- 
fall accidents. This suggests that further attention should be 
given to devising better ways to lessen the influence of these 
seven barriers. 

WALKING BENEATH UNSUPPORTED 
ROOF 

The victims of roof falls are often found in areas of 
unsupported roof. MS HA fatality reports indicate that more 
than half of the 97 deaths due to groundfalls in coal mines 
during 1979 and 1980 occurred in areas of unsupported roof. 
This series of questions were directed toward better defining 
the reasons why miners fail to avoid unsupported roof, how 
many miners go beneath unsupported roof, and how often. 



Reasons for Going Beneath Unsupported 
Roof 

MSHA roof and rib inspectors were asked what moti- 
vates miners to illegally go beneath unsupported roof (the only 
legally permissible reason for going beneath unsupported roof 
is to set temporary supports before installing permanent 
supports). The most common reply to this question was that 
miners do it to save time and/or effort; i.e., they want to take 
a shortcut. 

Inspectors mentioned several factors that sometimes 
contribute to miner willingness to risk working beneath un- 
supported roof. Among them are the following: 

They are in a hurry to get more coal out, especially if they 
think they are behind. 

They want to cut down the walking distance to a place 
they need to go. 

They think that the unsupported roof looks good. 



35 



They do it inadvertently. 

They have done it before without getting hurt. 

They are unwilling to set temporary supports. 

In order to finish loading a shuttle car, continuous miner 
operators might go a little beyond the edge of properly 
supported roof. 

Proportion of Miners Going Beneath 
Unsupported Roof 

In order to roughly estimate the proportion of miners who 
go beneath unsupported roof, miners were asked, "During a 
typical month, what percent of miners who work at the face go 
beneath unsupported roof for reasons other than to set tempo- 
rary supports?" Miners' responses to this question are given 
in table 3. The median of the estimates for the percentage of 
miners who go beneath unsupported roof during a typical 
month was 10 pet. This means that half of the estimates were 
greater than lOpctand half the estimates were less than lOpct. 
This suggests that the percent of miners going beneath unsup- 
ported roof is relatively low. 

In order to estimate the frequency with which miners go 
beneath unsupported roof, miners were asked, "Considering a 
typical crew of miners who work at the face, how often does 
someone go beneath unsupported roof for reasons other than 
to set temporary supports?" Miners' responses to this ques- 
tion are listed in table 4. Forty-four percent indicated that they 
believed that someone goes beneath unsupported roof at least 
once per shift! 

Twenty-five percent indicated that they believed that 
someone goes beneath unsupported roof at least once per 
week but not as often as once per shift. 

TABLE 3. - Estimates of the percentage of miners who 
go beneath unsupported roof during a typical month 



Participant 


Frequency of 


Frequency, pet 


estimates, pet 


estimates 







34 


27.2 


1 


9 


7.2 


2 


8 


6.4 


5 


9 


7.2 


9 


1 


.8 


10 


21 


16.8 


15 


2 


1.6 


20 


7 


5.6 


25 


7 


5.6 


30 


4 


3.2 


35 


2 


1.6 


50 


13 


10.4 


60 


1 


.8 


75 


2 


1.6 


80 


2 


1.6 


90 


2 


1.6 


100 

Total 


1 


.8 


125 


100.0 



TABLE 4. • Estimates of the frequency with which 

someone in a typical crew of miners goes beneath 

unsupported roof 



Participant 
estimates 



Frequency of 
estimates 



Frequency, 
pet 



At least once 

per shift 48 

At least once per week 

but less often than once 

every shift 28 

At least once per month 
but less often than once 
every week 16 

Less than once per month 18 

Total 110 



43.6 

25.4 

14.6 
16.4 



100.0 



These estimates suggest that going beneath unsupported 
roof is not an uncommon event in a typical mining crew, and, 
that more attention should be given to preventing miners from 
engaging in this practice. In conjunction with the data from 
table 3, these estimates suggest that (1) few miners are going 
beneath unsupported roof, but, (2) those who are going be- 
neath unsupported roof are doing it rather often. 

EFFECT OF VARIOUS CHANGES ON 
PREVENTING GROUNDFALL ACCIDENTS 

Each participant was initially asked to respond to an 
open-ended question on this topic. This question was fol- 
lowed by nine forced-choice questions. 

Open-Ended Questions 

Miners were asked for their opinions about what should 
be done to reduce the number of rock fall accidents in the coal 
industry. 

Their replies and (in parentheses) number of respondents 
were — 

Better training (19) 

Inspect the roof more often (14) 

Don't make entries too wide (7) 

Drill test holes more frequently and deeper (7) 

Always set temporary supports before walking beyond 
bolts (7) 

Put more emphasis on the dangerousness of groundfall 
accidents (7) 

Follow the roof control plan/bolting 
pattern more closely (6) 



36 



Use more of the automated temporary roof support 

(ATRS) type bolter (5) 
Recheck existing supports more often (5) 
Add more supports to bad areas (5) 
Stricter supervision (4) 
Use more bolts (4) 
Use longer bolts (4) 
Don't rush (4) 

Put less emphasis on production (3) 
Scale the roof better (2) 
Check the torque on roof bolts more often (2) 
Sound the roof more often (2) 
More safety talks (2) 

Other responses included putting canopies on roof 
bolters, operating equipment by remote control, offering 
bonuses for good roof support, installing roof supports more 
quickly after the area is mined, installing bolts closer to the rib, 
encouraging communication between miners about the exis- 
tence of new roof problems, and explaining some of the 
theoretical principles behind roof support. 

MSHA inspectors were also asked what they thought 
needs to be done to prevent more roof fall accidents in the coal 
industry. The most common response was that the use of 
ATRS systems on bolters should be mandatory. Such systems 
are expected to significantly reduce the amount of time miners 
spend beneath unsupported roof. Other responses include 

Use remote sensing devices to check for gas at the face. 

Do not assign inexperienced crews to perform retreat 
mining. 

Encourage continuous miner operators to report roof 
problems to bolters. 

Avoid letting sections stand idle during pillar recovery. 

Ensure closer compliance with the roof control plan and 
other safety rules. 

Improve training. 

With regard to the improvement of training, inspectors 
recommended the following: 

Supplement classroom training with structured on-the- 
job training in roof control and the identification of groundfall 
hazards. 

Explain the theoretical principles of roof support to 
bolters in laymen's terms. 

Limit the size of training classes to encourage more dis- 
cussion. 

Increase miner awareness of the consequences of roof 
falls by showing slides of roof fall accidents and relating the 
details of how people have been injured by them. 

MSHA inspectors were asked two questions regarding 
the identification of groundfall hazards. They were asked to 
list the types of cues that can warn miners that a piece or an 
area of the roof is about to fall, and then to choose which of 



these warning signals would be most difficult for inexperi- 
enced miners to recognize as an indicator of danger. The 
following visual cues were mentioned: 



Cracked, bent or broken support posts. 

Cracks, gaps, slips, cutters, and clay veins in the roof and 



rib. 



Heaving of the floor. 

Loose rock lying on the floor. 

The absence of rock dust on previously dusted surfaces. 

Bent plates around bolts. 

Cracked, bent, broken or squeezed cap blocks, crossbars 
or cribs. 

Sags in the middle of the roof or crossbars. 

Reduction in the clearance between tops of equipment 
and the roof over time. 

Dust trickling down from the roof. 

Water seeping out of roof bolt holes. 

Kettle bottoms and other fossils. 

The following auditory cues were mentioned: 

Sounds associated with sounding the roof. 

Noise caused by shifts in the stress distribution on various 
layers of rock, i.e., when the roof is working. 

Cracking of wooden supports due to stress concentra- 
tions. 

Pinging noises from roof bolts caused by increased roof 
loading. 

It was noted that roof bolter operators receive several 
types of cues about the stability of the roof when drilling bolt 
holes. It was also noted that these warning signals are not 
universal, but may vary with the type of coal seam and 
geological conditions. 

Responses to the question, "Which types of warning 
signals are more difficult for inexperienced miners to recog- 
nize than miners with several years of experience?" include 
the following: clay veins, cutters, sloughing of the ribs, 
cracking or heaving of the floor, the presence of sandstone 
channels, and the pinging noises produced by bolts. 

Forced-Choice Questions 

Miners were asked to indicate the degree to which various 
changes would help miners avoid rock fall injuries. The 
changes were 

1. Better lighting. 

2. Less noise. 

3. Supervisor putting greater emphasis on correcting 
roof hazards. 

4. Better training in the identification of roof hazards. 

5. Better training in proper methods of supporting the 
roof. 



37 



6. Reprimanding or penalizing those who repeatedly go 
beneath unsupported roof. 

7. Better scaling of the roof. 

8. Adding more support to bad areas of the roof. 

9. Better installation of roof bolts. 

A six-point rating scale ranging from a very small degree 
to a very large degree was used to respond to each statement. 
The rating scale contained the following options: 

A very small degree 

A small degree 

A somewhat small degree 

A somewhat large degree 

A large degree 

A very large degree 

Each of nine items were inserted into the blank as the 
following statement was read: To what degree would 

help miners avoid rock fall injuries? The percent of 

miners who chose each point on the rating scale is presented 
in table 5. The first column of numbers indicates the percent 



of participants who chose a large degree or a very large degree 
to answer the question. 

Table 5 rank orders the nine statements in this section in 
terms of the highest to lowest percent of persons who re- 
sponded to the questions with large or very large. In order of 
descending rank, the top three items are adding more support 
to bad areas of the roof, better training in proper methods of 
supporting the roof, and better training in the identification of 
roof hazards. Except for better lighting, the majority of the 
miners indicated that all the proposed changes would help 
miners avoid rock fall injuries to a large or very large degree. 
(The corresponding percentage for better lighting was 44 pet.) 
These data suggest that, because of their perceived impor- 
tance in reducing rock fall injuries, further consideration 
should be given to the possibility of implementing all of the 
nine changes proposed in this section. 

Items B-l , B-2, B-7, B-8, and B-9 all refer to changing the 
physical work environment, whereas items B-3, B-4, B-5, and 
B-6 all refer to changes in miner training and supervision. 
Note that there is a tendency for the percentages of responses 
in the large or very large degree categories to be higher for the 
proposed changes in training and supervision than for the 
proposed changes in the physical work environment. 



TABLE 5. - Rank ordering of questions about degree to which various changes would help miners to avoid rock fall 
Injuries, according to percentage of persons who chose large or very large degree responses 

Reason Large or Very Small Somewhat Somewhat Large Very large 

very large small small large 



B-8. Adding more support 

to bad areas of the roof. 78.9 

B-5. Better training in proper 
methods of supporting the roof. ....69.2 

B-4. Better training in the 
identification of roof hazards 68.4 

B-6. Reprimanding or penalizing 
those who repeatedly go beneath 
unsupported roof. 60.0 

B-7. Better scaling of the roof 56.7 

B-3. Supervisor putting greater 

emphasis on correcting roof 

hazards 56.3 

B-2. Less noise 56.0 

B-9. Better installation of 

roof bolts 53.1 

B-l. Better lighting 44.0 



3.0 



2.3 



3.0 



5.3 3.8 



11.3 3.0 



6.0 6.8 



9.0 



14.3 



15.8 



39.8 



43.6 



45.1 



39.1 



25.6 



23.3 



10.4 


14.8 


5.2 


9.6 


28.9 


31.1 


2.2 


17.2 


8.2 


15.7 


37.3 


19.4 



6.7 


15.6 


4.4 


17.0 


37.8 


18.5 


7.5 


19.4 


6.0 


11.2 


38.1 


17.9 


6.1 


25.8 


5.3 


9.8 


25.8 


27.3 


14.2 


26.9 


9.7 


5.2 


30.6 


13.4 



38 



MINER EXPERIENCES WITH ROCK FALLS 



The miners interviewed for this study were asked to 
provide information about their recent experiences with rock 
falls that is not typically collected by MSHA. Miners were 
asked for detailed information about either recent injuries that 
they had suffered as a result of a rock fall, or incidents in which 
they were startled because of their close proximity to large 
pieces of falling rock. 

Miner responses indicate that unplanned rock falls in 
underground coal mines are a somewhat common event Of 
the 143 miners interviewed for this study, 88 reported that they 
had either been injured or startled by a rock fall at least one 



time during the past year. Eighty-one percent of those who 
reported that they had been recently startled by large pieces of 
falling rock said that such an incident had happened more than 
once within the past year. The median of the answers was 
three times. S ixty-five percent of the miners who reported that 
they had recently suffered an injury caused by a groundfall 
said that they had been near the location of the rock fall for 
only a few minutes prior to the accident This suggests that 
most rock fall accidents could be avoided if miners would 
always check the roof before beginning to work in a new area. 



CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 



The data collected for this study suggest that most people 
who work underground agree that the factors listed in figure 
1 are significant barriers to coal miner prevention of ground- 
fall accidents. The evidence supporting this assertion is 
reviewed in the following sections. 

INABILITY TO RECOGNIZE 
GROUNDFALL HAZARDS 

The reasons for an individual's inability to recognize 
groundfall hazards may be an attribute of the person or of the 
environment. Data supporting the importance of this set of 
factors comes from miners' responses to questions B-l, B-2, 
and B-4 (table 5). Forty-four percent said that better lighting 
would help miners avoid rock fall injuries to a large or very 
large degree. This implies that miners may often fail to 
recognize hazardous roof conditions because the illumination 
is not good enough to be able to detect them. Fifty-six percent 
said that less noise would help miners to a large or very large 
degree. This implies that there may often be too much noise 
for miners to hear sounds that could warn them that a hazard- 
ous roof condition exists. Sixty-eight percent said that better 
training in the identification of roof hazards would help 
miners to a large or very large degree. This suggests that 
miners sometimes fail to recognize certain types of hazardous 
roof conditions because they are not aware that these roof 
conditions should be considered hazardous. 

INABILITY TO CORRECT GROUNDFALL 
HAZARDS 

Data supporting the importance of this set of factors 
comes from miners responses to questions A- 1 and A-6 (table 
2) and B-6 (table 5). Fifty-one percent agreed that one of the 
main reasons that miners sometimes neglect correcting roof 
hazards is because they do not have the tools or materials with 
them that are needed to fix the roof problem. Thirty-seven 



percent agreed that one of the main reasons that miners 
sometimes neglect correcting roof hazards is because they do 
not know how to correct roof problems. This suggests that 
miners sometimes fail to correct certain types of hazardous 
roof problems because they have never learned how to correct 
them. Sixty-nine percent said that better training in proper 
methods of supporting the roof would help miners avoid rock 
fall injuries to a large or very large degree. 

LACK OF MOTIVATION TO SEARCH FOR 
GROUNDFALL HAZARDS 

Data supporting the importance of this set of factors 
comes from miner responses to questions A-8, A-7 (table 2) 
and B-3 (table 5). Eighty-one percent agreed that one of the 
main reasons that miners sometimes neglect correcting roof 
hazards is because they do not take enough time to look for 
roof problems. One reason that miners might not take enough 
time to look for roof problems is that they do not realize how 
dangerous roof problems really are. In response to question 
A-7, 68.4 pet agreed that one of the main reasons that miners 
sometimes neglect correcting roof hazards is because they do 
not realize how dangerous roof problems really are. Another 
reason that miners might not take enough time to look for roof 
problems is that they do not think that their supervisor wants 
them to devote much time to this activity. In response to 
question B-3, 56 pet indicated that supervisors putting greater 
emphasis on correcting roof hazards would help miners avoid 
rock fall injuries to a large or very large degree. 

LACK OF MOTIVATION TO CORRECT 
GROUNDFALL HAZARDS 

Data supporting the importance of five types of factors 
within this category come from miners' responses to ques- 
tions A-2, A-3, A-4, and A-7 (table 2) and B-3 (table 5). Fifty- 
two percent agreed that one of the main reasons that miners 



• 



39 



sometimes neglect correcting roof hazards is because they 
think that it is someone else's responsibility to take care of 
roof problems. Forty-eight percent agreed that oneof the main 
reasons that miners sometimes neglect correcting roof haz- 
ards is because they do not want to risk getting hurt while 
fixing the roof. Fifty-eight percent agreed that one of the main 
reasons that miners sometimes neglect correcting roof haz- 
ards is because they dislike doing the type of work necessary 
to correct the roof problem. Sixty-eight percent agreed that 
one of the main reasons that miners sometimes neglect cor- 
recting roof hazards is because they do not realize how 
dangerous roof problems really are. Fifty-six percent indi- 
cated that supervisors putting greater emphasis on correcting 
roof hazards would help miners avoid rock fall injuries to a 
large or very large degree. 

PREVENTING GROUNDFALL ACCIDENTS 

When asked about what should be done to reduce the 
number of rock fall accidents in the coal industry, both miners 
and inspectors frequently cited the need for better training in 
this area. Several other strategies for improving training were 
also suggested. 

A significant number of miners agreed that each of the 
changes proposed in statements B-l through B-9 (table 5) 
would significantly help miners to avoid rock fall injuries. 
The three highest ranked changes were adding more support 
to bad areas of the roof, better training in proper methods of 
supporting the roof, and better training in the identification of 
roof hazards. 

RECOMMENDATION TO COLLECT 
SURVEY INFORMATION 

In order to formulate a good strategy for preventing roof 
and rib falls at a particular mine site, one needs to get an 
accurate diagnosis of the types of barriers that people are 
facing at that mine. Barriers that are quite significant in some 
mines are not at all a problem in other mines. Therefore, mine 



safety and training professionals should consider collecting 
survey information from the people who work at their mine to 
find out which barriers need to be overcome. The people who 
work underground every day are in the best position to help 
diagnose which barriers are the most troublesome, and they 
may also have some very good ideas about how these barriers 
can be overcome. 

The Bureau of Mines has developed a detailed survey 
guide for collecting information about miner beliefs concern- 
ing the causes and prevention of roof and rib fall accidents. 
This guide contains a set of survey forms, and a set of detailed 
instructions about how to use these forms to conduct one's 
own survey. The survey requires approximately 30 min for 
participants to complete, and is designed for collecting infor- 
mation from groups of miners in a classroom setting (e.g., as 
part of annual refresher training). 

The information one obtains from this survey can be used 
for a variety of purposes. The survey results can be used by 
trainers to help them determine the adequacy of the training 
they are giving miners on the prevention of roof and rib fall 
accidents, and how they might make improvements to this 
material. The survey results can be used in subsequent 
training sessions as an excellent source of material for group 
discussions. The survey results can also be used to help 
formulate recommendations to mine managers about what 
should be done (in addition to training) to prevent roof and rib 
fall accidents. 

MSHA has assembled a set of materials to assist those 
interested in finding out how to collect survey information 
concerning roof and rib fall accidents from the miners at one's 
own mine site. These materials include: 5 

1 . A survey guide that contains survey forms and detailed 
instructions about how to use these forms to conduct a survey 
of one's own miners. 

2. A Bureau of Mines Information Circular that presents 
substantially more information about groundfall accidents 
than could be covered in this paper. 

3. A 20 min videotape presentation of the research 
findings contained in this paper. 



5 To obtain copies of any of these materials, write to: National 
Mine Health and Safety Academy, Business Office, P.O. Box 1 166, 
Beckley, WV 25802-1 1 66. If you have any questions concerning the 
survey guide's use, contact the training specialist at the MSHA office 
in your district. 



40 



BLASTERS TRAINING MANUAL FOR METAL-NONMETAL MINERS 



By Michael A. Peltier, 1 Larry R. Fletcher, 2 and Richard A. Dick 3 



ABSTRACT 



The Bureau of Mines has developed blasters training material for the metal-nonmetal mining 
industry. The material is divided into 6 chapters and 47 modules, with each module covering a single 
topic. For example, the second chapter, which covers initiation and priming, is subdivided into nine 
modules. There is a module covering initiations systems in general, another module covering delay 
series, and one discussing priming. The remaining six modules deal with each of the six initiation 
systems. 

The modules were structured to enable the mine training personnel to easily develop a site-specific 
blasters training program. Each module contains text material that comprehensively covers the topic, 
as well as a paraphrased section highlighting the major ideas of the text. Also included with each 
module are line drawings and test questions with answers. 

The objective of this material is to increase hazard awareness and foster the use of safe blasting 
practices with the anticipated end result being accident-free and productive blasting. 



; 



INTRODUCTION 



Based on accident data obtained from the Mine Safety 
and HealthAdministration (MSHA), most blasting accidents 
are caused by human error, lack of hazard awareness, or lack 
of general blasting knowledge.A lack of understanding as to 
how explosives function can contribute to higher mining costs 
because of inadequate fragmentation or lost production. 

Federal regulations require that every person who uses or 
handles explosive materials shall be experienced and under- 
stand the hazards involved. Trainees shall do such work only 
under the supervision of and in the immediate presence of 
experienced miners. Federal regulations also require hazard 
and task training for miners. Most training given on mining 



'Mining engineer. 
2 Mining engineering technician. 
'Staff engineer. 
Twin Cities Research Center, Bureau of Mines, Minneapolis, MN. 



property is based on experience at that mine and is done 
without the aid of adequate training materials. An improved 
and more meaningful blasters training program is essential in 
assisting operators to properly train blasters and meet MSHA 
training regulations. 

The blasters training material was developed to aid indus- 
try in the preparation of a site-specific training course, and is 
based on a previous Bureau report 4 It is the intent of the 
blasters training material to help the individual using explo- 
sives and blasting agents to develop a better understanding of 
the various aspects of blasting that contribute to a safe and 
efficient blast. 



"Dick, R. A., L. R. Fletcher, and D. V. D 'Andrea Explosives and 
Blasting Procedures Manual. BuMines IC 8925. 1983. 105 pp. 



41 



PREPARING A TRAINING COURSE 



The blasters training materials have been developed to be 
easily constructed into a site-specific and comprehensive 
blasters course. The material consists of discrete modules that 
contain text material, a paraphrased section, line drawings, 
and test questions with answers. 

Individual pages have been divided vertically with the 
comprehensive text material on the left-hand side of the page. 
Each paragraph of the text material is numbered for quick 
reference. The right-hand side of the page consists of para- 
phrased text material with a main heading and a paragraph 
number. The person preparing the training course can read the 
paraphrased material quickly in order to grasp the main ideas 
of the text material. If an explanation is needed, the individ- 
ual, by noting the paragraph number, can go directly to the 
paragraph that discusses a particular point. 

Line drawings are included with the material to help illus- 
trate specific concepts. The line drawings can be easily 
converted to overhead transparencies for use in the training 
course. 

The first step in preparing a blasters training course is to 
determine what material must be covered. This can be accom- 
plished by talking with the blasting supervisor and blasters, 
and by observing the blasting operation. To help determine 
what topics need to be covered in the course, a checklist is 
included with the material. The checklist is arranged to 



parallel the chapters. By completing the checklist the trainer 
will be able to locate the modules to be included in the course. 
For example, under the "Chapter One — Explosives Prod- 
ucts" section of the checklist, if ANFO and emulsion are noted 
next to the subsection "Blasting Agents," by reading the list of 
modules in the table of contents under the "Chapter One — Ex- 
plosives Products" section, the trainer will notice that module 
4 discusses ANFO and module 5 discusses emulsions. 

The second step is to gather the training material needed. 
The information gathered from the blasting personnel through 
the use of the checklist will indicate which modules should be 
included in the course. In addition to the modular material, 
slides and other visual aids from the actual operation should 
be used. Additional technical information concerning spe- 
cific blasting products can be obtained from either the explo- 
sives supplier or manufacturer. 

The third step is to write lesson plans for the course and 
arrange the training material into a cohesive unit. The writing 
of the lesson plans can be simplified by making extensive use 
of the paraphrased section in the modules. 

Since the experience, knowledge, and ability of individual 
blasters vary widely, both the length and amount of material 
to be included in the course will have to be determined by mine 
management. 



CHAPTER CONTENTS 



CHAPTER ONE— EXPLOSIVES 
PRODUCTS 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to help the blaster develop an 
understanding of various types of explosives. Chemical and 
physical properties of seven types of explosive products are 
discussed. Additional information explaining nine properties 
of explosives, used to determine how an explosive product 
will function under field conditions, is also covered. Material 
explaining how to select an explosive product is included in 
this chapter. 

Objectives 

Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to— 

1. Give a concise explanation of the nature of various 
explosive products; 

2. List the basic reactive ingredients of an explosive prod- 
uct; 

3. Explain how the detonation pressure and explosive 
pressure cause the rock to be broken; 



4 . Explain the importance of oxygen balance as it relates to 
both the energy released and to the formation of toxic gases; 

5. Describe the individual characteristics of the explosive 
products the blaster may be using; 

6. Briefly explain why a particular product is being used at 
his or her operation; 

7. State and explain nine basic properties of explosive 
products; and 

8. Relate the basic properties of explosives with the types 
of explosive products being used on the job. 



Chapter Modules 



1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 



Chemistry and Physics of Explosives 
Types of Explosives and Blasting Agents 
Nitroglycerin-Based High Explosives 
Ammonium Nitrate-Fuel Oil (ANFO) 
Slurries, Water-Gels, Emulsions 
Heavy ANFO 
Primers and Boosters 
Liquid Oxygen Explosives 
Black Powder 

10. Properties of Explosives 

11.- Explosives Selection Criteria 



9. 



42 



CHAPTER TWO— INITIATION 
AND PRIMING 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to help the blaster develop an 
understanding of six initiation systems. The blaster will learn 
the various components of each initiation system, how the 
individual system functions, and the advantages and disad- 
vantages of the six systems. Information about the two basic 
delay series and material concerning priming is also included 
in this chapter. 

Objectives 

Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to— 

1 . Name the three basic parts of an initiation system; 

2. Explain the difference between high explosives and 
blasting agents as to their sensitivity to initiation; 

3. State the difference between an instantaneous and a 
delay detonator; 

4. List the various components of the initiation system he 
or she will be using; 

5. Explain how the initiation system functions; 

6. Explain how to check the final hookup of the system; 

7. Discuss the potential hazards to the initiation system; 

8. Give the definition of a primer; 

9. Name some types of explosives used as primers; 

10. Explain the proper procedure for making primers; 

11. Explain why the proper location of the primer in the 
borehole is important. 

Chapter Modules 

12. Initiation Systems 

13. Delay Series 

14. Electric Initiation 

15. Detonating Cord Initiation 

16. Detaline Initiation System 

17. Cap-and-Fuse Initiation 

18. Hercudet Initiation 

19. Nonel Initiation 

20. Priming 

CHAPTER THREE— BLASTHOLE 
LOADING 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to examine proper blasthole 
loading techniques. The chapter discusses loading procedures 
for both small- and large-diameter blastholes. Also included 
in the chapter is material that not only discusses how to check 
blastholes for proper depth, water, voids, and obstructions, but 
how to mitigate these problems. 



Objectives 

Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to— 

1 . Explain why blastholes should never be loaded and why 
workers should retreat from the blast area during the approach 
or progress of an electrical storm; 

2. Describe how to check the borehole for proper depth, 
obstructions, water, and voids; 

3. Explain how to remedy problems, such as, improper 
borehole depth, obstructions, water, and voids; 

4. State why stemming is important and how to estimate 
the amount of stemming needed; 

5. Explain when plastic borehole liners or water-resistant 
cartridges should be used; 

6. Explain proper technique for loading the explosive or 
blasting agent he or she will be using; 

7. Describe the characteristics of the type of pneumatic 
loading he or she will use; 

8. Explain the potential problem of static electricity if he or 
she is going to use a pneumatic loader; and 

9. List the advantages and disadvantages of using bulk- 
loaded products in large-diameter blastholes. 

Chapter Modules 

21. Introduction 

22. Checking the Blasthole 

23. General Loading Procedures 

24. Small-Diameter Blastholes 

25. Large-Diameter Blastholes 

CHAPTER FOUR— BLAST 
DESIGN 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the factors that 
influence safe and effective blast design. In addition to the 
discussion of design factors for surface and underground 
blasting, four controlled blasting techniques are also covered. 



Objectives 



• 



Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to — 

1 . Discuss how geology affects fragmentation; 

2. Name the most significant geologic features to con- 
sider when designing a blast; 

3. Discuss the importance of a well-detailed drilling log; 

4. Explain how to determine the burden; 

5. Explain why geologic structure is the major factor in 
determining blasthole diameter, 

6. Explain how collar distance affects fragmentation size; 



43 



7. Explain the relationship of collar distance to airblast 
and flyrock; 

8. Explain the relationship between burden flexing and 
rock fragmentation; 

9. Discuss the problem with either excessive or insuffi- 
cient subdrilling; 

10. Explain how spacing is determined; 

1 1 . Explain the advantages of millisecond delays; 

12. Discuss two classifications of opening cuts; 

13. Explain how to design an angled cut; 

14. Explain how to design a parallel hole cut; 

15. Discuss the two types of delays for underground blast- 
ing; 

16. Name the two main advantages of using controlled 
blasting; 

17. List the four primary methods of controlled blasting; 
and 

18. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the vari- 
ous methods of controlled blasting. 

Chapter Modules 

26. Introduction to Blast Design 

27. Properties and Geology of the Rock Mass 

28. Surface Blasting 

29. Underground Blasting 

30. Controlled Blasting Techniques 

CHAPTER FIVE— ENVIRONMENTAL 
EFFECTS OF BLASTING 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the environ- 
mental effects of blasting. The material will discuss flyrock, 
ground vibrations, airblast, and dust and gases. Methods to 
reduce the potential healthand safety hazards they may pres- 
ent will be discussed. 

Objectives 

Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to— 

1. Explain the importance of conducting a preblast sur- 
vey, maintaining comprehensive records, and good public 
relations; 

2. Discuss the causes of flyrock; 

3. Discuss methods to alleviate flyrock; 

4. Discuss the causes of ground vibration; 

5. Discuss design techniques to minimize vibrations; 

6. State some methods to monitor ground vibrations; 

7. Discuss the causes of airblast; 

8. Discuss methods to monitor airblast; 

9. List techniques to reduce airblast; 



10. Explain why an adequate amount of time must be given 
for dust and gases to be diluted before returning to the blast 
site; and 

1 1 . List the two common toxic gases produced by blasting 
and list techniques to reduce them. 

Chapter Modules 

31. Introduction to Environmental Effects of Blasting 

32. Flyrock 

33. Ground Vibrations 

34. Airblast 

35. Dust and Gases 

CHAPTER SIX- 
BLASTING SAFETY 

Purpose and Description 

The purpose of this chapter is to help the blaster develop 
a better understanding of blasting safety. This will be accom- 
plished by examining a number of auxiliary blasting func- 
tions. A number of precautions related to previous modules 
are mentioned. Four accident types that occur frequently are 
also discussed. 

Objectives 

Upon completion of this chapter, the blaster should be able 
to— 

1 . Explain why a knowledge of all current blasting safety 
regulations is important; 

2. Name the agencies that regulate and enforce the use 
and storage of explosives and blasting agents; 

3. Describe the requirements for vehicles used to trans- 
port explosives and blasting agents from the magazine to the 
job site; 

4. Explain the importance of marking the blast area, and 
keeping nonessential personnel away; 

5. Explain when to check for extraneous electricity; 

6. Discuss why electrical storms are a hazard regardless 
of the type of initiation system; 

7. Explain the importance of proper primer makeup; 

8. List a number of checks to be made before borehole 
loading begins; 

9 . Describe various methods to check column rise during 
borehole loading; 

10. Describe some precautions to consider before and dur- 
ing the hookups; 

11. Explain some good methods for blast area security; 

12. Describe the potential hazards to check for when reen- 
tering the blast site after the shot has been fired; 

13. Discuss methods for disposing of misfires; and 

14. Discuss the principal causes of blasting accidents. 



44 



Chapter Modules 

36. Introduction to Blasting Safety 

37. Explosives Storage 

38. Transportation From Magazine to Job Site 

39. Precautions Before Loading 

40. Primer Safety 



41. Borehole Loading 

42. Hooking Up the Shot 

43. Shot Firing 

44. Postshot Safety 

45. Disposing of Misfires 

46. Disposal of Explosive Materials 

47. Principal Causes of Blasting Accidents 






SUMMARY 



Training material for metal and nonmetal mining has been 
developed by the Bureau. This program consists of 47 mod- 
ules or topics under 6 major headings (chapters). The mod- 
ules consist of a text and outline on a single blasting topic plus 
questions and answers. Supplementing the modules are a 73- 
item bibliography, a list of regulatory authorities and their 
responsibilities, additional information on MSHA and Office 



of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement, glossary, 
and 65 illustrations suitable for duplication and use as over- 
head transparancies. 

Developed material will soon be available through 
MSHA's National Mine Health and Safety Academy, Beck- 
ley, WV. 






45 



OPERATIONS-BASED TRAINING STRATEGY FOR LONGWALL MINING 



By R. Larry Grayson, 1 Michael J. Klishis, 1 
Ronald C. Althouse, 1 and George M. Lies 2 



ABSTRACT 

A system that can be used to pinpoint the specific training needs of operations and assist in the 
design and upgrading of focused training approaches can benefit longwall mining. It can be directed 
at systematically correcting performance discrepancies at an individual, crew, or mine level, and also 
to challenge workers and management toward attaining improved performances. Such an approach 
involves a combination of features, such as diligence in monitoring and evaluating performances, 
thorough coordination in implementing changes, and effective use of operational data. 

The Bureau of Mines, through contract with the Mining Extension Service of West Virginia 
University, has developed such a system, the training in operations program (TOP), that combines 
these features and ties longwall training directly to operational performance requirements. 

The TOP provides a practical five-step system for managers to implement a focused training 
program that coincides with longwall productivity and efficiency goals. The system permits manage- 
ment to plan, organize, and schedule task training, cross training, and specialized longwall skills 
training of regular crews and backup personnel. 



INTRODUCTION 



Managers in the coal industry often wish they had a fool- 
proof system for managing operational performance and 
managers in safety, training, and operations would like a 
system for upgrading training to match operational needs. A 
practical approach for managing operations and upgrading 
worker skills involves a combination of features, such as 
diligence in monitoring and evaluating performances, thor- 
ough coordination in implementing changes, and effective 
use of operational data. 

The training in operations program (TOP) is a manage- 
ment system that combines these features so that managers 
can plan, organize, and direct longwall training efforts. It is 
an operations-based strategy that ties longwall training di- 
rectly to operational performance requirements and guides 
management step-by-step in using operational data for im- 
proving safety and efficiency through training. 

In a manner similar to the way management seeks to 
allocate and use human, technical, and support resources for 
more efficient longwall operations, this approach: 



1. Provides an operator with an organized way to plan 
and execute training for developing proficient workers and for 
improving work practices on the longwall face, 

2. Introduces guidelines and schedules for training of 
longwall workers and workers from different areas of the mine 
who are often reassigned to nonroutine tasks, and 

3. Establishes operational performance criteria that 
guide the training of workers assigned to longwall panels and 
allow for timely evaluation of their individual performances. 

This approach can benefit longwall operators threefold. 
First, it incorporates a problem -solving method for assisting 
management in pinpointing trainable operational concerns. 
Second, it helps managers make better use of training re- 
sources for upgrading and maintaining worker skills in a 
systematic way. Last, it emphasizes collection and analysis of 
data for assessing the impact of training on operational per- 
formances. 



'Assistant professor. 
2 Curriculum designer. 

Mining Extension Service, West Virginia University, 
Morgantown, WV. 



46 



TRAINING IN OPERATIONS PROGRAM: A METHODOLOGY 



The Mining Extension Service of West Virginia Univer- 
sity, under contract with the Bureau of Mines, developed the 
concept for the TOP on the basis of an 18-month assessment 
of training needs in longwall mining. 

This operations-based training concept fits the tradi- 
tional mine management system for controlling operational 
performances, but it directs managers in using operational 
data for improving worker proficiency and, hence, reducing 
downtime and accidents. 

The model (fig. 1) consists of a five-step methodology 
that guides managers in developing a specific training strat- 
egy for resolving operational areas of concern. 

The five steps, which will be described in more detail, 
are — 

1 Developing a training strategy. 

2. Planning the training program. 

3. Scheduling and executing training. 

4. Evaluating impact of training on operations. 

5. Obtaining feedback and adjusting training strategies. 

Through this process, TOP provides a practical way for 
managers to maintain compatibility between training and 
operations and to implement training according to established 
company policy, particular on-the-job training (OJT) prac- 
tices, and operational timetables. Also, this system permits 
management to plan, organize, and schedule task training, 
crosstraining, and specialized skills training of longwall 
crews and otherworkers who are assigned intermittently to 
longwall tasks. 

The model can direct management in making the best use 
of current longwall training options (Harold (l), 3 Jackson (2), 
Sprouls Q), and Riddell and Savage (4J). Also, it can help 
longwall operators bridge the gap between initial training by 
the manufacturer of the longwall equipment, which extends 
from installation of equipment and the first few weeks of 
operations, and task training or annual refresher training, 
which may meet the coal operator's cross-training require- 
ments. 



1 — ► 

— ► 
— ► 


Develop 
training strategy 


<4— 
— ► 


" 


Plan the training 
in operations program (TOP) 


w 


Schedule training 
and execute TOP 




\r 




Evaluate impact of training 
on operations and achieving 
objectives 




w 




Obtain feedback. 

Make adjustments in TOP 

and/or operations 



FIGURE 1.— Training in operations program (TOP) model. 



TOP AND OPERATIONS-BASED DATA MANAGEMENT 



As a systematic approach to longwall training, the TOP 
involves the use of operational data and related information 
for training purposes. Analysis of such data can help manag- 
ers pinpoint real training needs and project operational bene- 
fits. With this strategy, mine management can also capitalize 
on existing knowledge and experience — often lost with infor- 
mal training — and adjust training plans to meet operational 
demands. 

The program organizes pertinent operational information 
according to three facets of longwall mining: 

'Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to items in the list of 
references preceeding the appendix at the end of this paper. 



1. Work practices that often change according to the 
requirements of a system's technology and equipment modi- 
fications; panel design and dimensions, and mining or physi- 
cal conditions. 

2. Work (shift) organization that depends on the amount 
of time used for performance of production-related tasks, 
nonroutine tasks associated with downtime, and tasks re- 
quired for servicing and maintenance of equipment 

3 . Workforce requirements that derive from staffing and 
crew configuration, demographic trends of longwall crews, 
and the general or specialized training needs of machine 
operators and selected workers. 



47 



The three facets of longwall mining provide a useful 
framework for organizing data and information that affect 
longwall training. Each facet consists of several factors that 
influence both the content of training and the level of perform- 
ance. 

LONGWALL WORK PRACTICES 

Work practices may vary widely according to technol- 
ogy, panel dimensions, and face conditions, although long- 
wall operators have sought to standardize operational proce- 
dures over the years. Mine operators generally prefer a 
double-ended ranging drum shearer and shields for their 
longwall systems (table 1). This type of installation now 
accounts for nearly 85 pet of all longwall panels operating in 
1986 according to analysis of recent studies (Sprouls (5J). 



Preferred work practices often change as management 
makes modifications in the longwall system for safety and 
efficiency. Longwall operators also tend to implement new 
technology as it becomes available, phase out labor to reduce 
mining costs, and usually standardize work practices as 
changes are made in the system. 

Longwall systems, which generally handle adverse 
physical conditions better than other mining methods, are still 
characterized by a number of common problems affecting 
work practices. These areas of concern are congested walk- 
ways, which restrict movement, especially at the headgate, 
flying and falling rocks, especially at shearer operator and 
shield worker locations; and tight clearance for workers as- 
signed to cleaning rock-coal spillage, transporting supplies 
along the face, and performing nonroutine maintenance work 
(especially during downtime periods). 



TABLE 1 - Longwall equipment utilization, 1974-84 



New installations 
1974 1975-77 1978-82 

Number pet Number pet Number pet 



All installations operating 

in 1984-85 period 

Number pet 



DOUBLE-ENDED RANGING SHEARER 



Chainless haulage: 
Shield support , 
Chock support . 

Chain haulage: 

Shield support , 
Chock support , 

Chainless haulage: 
Shield support . 

Chain haulage: 

Shield support . 
Frame support , 

Chainless haulage: 

Shield support . 
Chain haulage: 

Shield support . 

Chock support . 
Rope haulage: 

Chock support . 

Chain haulage: 

Shield support . 

Chock support . 

Frame support . 
Rope haulage 

Chock support . 

Frame support , 



4 


8 


3 


20 


43 


88 


74 


74 


1 


2 





NAp 





NAp 





NAp 


6 


12 


8 


53 


3 


6 


6 


6 


9 


18 


2 


13 


1 


2 


2 


2 



SINGLE-DRUM RANGING SHEARER 

NAp NAp 



7 


14 





NAp 


1 


2 


1 


1 


1 


2 





NAp 





NAp 





NAp 



SINGLE FIXED DRUM SHEARER 



NAp 



NAp 












NAp 





NAp 


3 


10 





NAp 





NAp 


2 


4 





NAp 





NAp 






COAL PLOW 






2 


4 


1 


7 


1 


2 


1 


2 


1 


7 





NAp 


7 


14 





NAp 





NAp 


2 


4 





NAp 





NAp 


3 


6 





NAp 





NAp 



8 

1 
1 

NAp 
NAp 



Total 



48 



ALL CUTTING MACHINE SYSTEMS 



100 



15 



100 



49 



100 



100 



100 



NAp: Not applicable 



48 



TABLE 2. - Overview of longwall crew responsibilities 






Scope of 
activity 



Service- 
maintenance 1 



Startup 2 



On-shift duties 



Cutting time 



Downtime 



End of shift 



HEADGATE OPERATOR 



Communications, 


Service duties, vis- 


Coordinates startup 


Coordinating role with 


Special duties and 


All shutdown tasks 


coordination, trans- 


ual housekeeping. 


with shearer 


supervisor and shearer 


tasks as instructed. 


(except hydraulic 


portation. Performs 




operator who gives 


operator. Performs all 




pumps), does deener- 


all tasks. 




OK and startup or- 


tasks. Monitors cutting 




gize. 


Alignment done by 




ders. 


speed communicates 






a supervisor- 






with headgate operator 






shieldman. 






on pass, both ways. 







SHEARER OPERATOR 



Sequence of activi- 


Service duties, vis- 


Coordinates with 


Discuss cuts with super- 


None. 


All shutdown tasks 


ties coordinates 


ual monitoring. 


headgate operator 


visor, coordinates with 




(except deenergize 


with many (e.g., 




key steps (e.g., all 


supervisor. Performs all 




shearer and powerwa- 


startup, alignment, 




clear, panline, ener- 


tasks. Monitors cutting 




ter, done by headgate 


deenergize shearer, 




gize) under instruc- 


speed, communicates 




operator). 


hydraulic hoses, fit- 




tions from supervi- 


with headgate operator 






tings). Shields pres- 




sor. 


on pass, both ways. 






surized by shield 












mover. 













Coordinates, 
checks activities 
with many workers 
at the face. Runs 
face equipment. 



PLOW HEAD-TAIL OPERATOR 



Usually mechanic- 
electrician or main- 
tenance shift. 



Coordinates startup 
with supervisor and 
electrician-me- 
chanic, functioning 
as headgate 
operator. Informa- 
tion on height- 
depth from supervi- 
sor, tailgate 
operator, jacksetter. 



Monitors sequence 
movement of panline, 
but not alignment, face 
crew aligns. Methane 
supervisor checks, re- 
ports to supervisor, face 
crew. 



None. 



Coordinates shutdown 
with supervisor, me- 
chanic-electrician, 
and utility workers 
(deenergize locally). 







SHIELDMAN-JACKSETTER 






Coordinates with 


Usually, hydraulic 


Preoperational du- 


Coordinate-communi- 


Special concerns. 


Communicates with 


supervisor and oth- 


supervisor, electri- 


ties apply here too. 


cate between headgate 




headgate operator and 


ers on face. Per- 


cian-mechanic, util- 




operator, shearer -plow 




shearer operator (ex- 


forms all tasks. Of- 


ity worker. 




operator, moving shields 




cept hydraulic pumps. 


ten OK's with hy- 






and moving panlines 




electrician-mechanic- 


draulic supervisor 






(following operators). 




utility worker or su- 


or mechanic, 










pervisor turns off 


headgate operator, 










pumps). 


electrician. 













MECHANIC-ELECTRICIAN 3 



Special skills, 


Mechanic or 3d 


Does ongoing per- 


Does ongoing permissi- 


Performs tasks as 


None. 


qualifications. 


shift maintenance 


missibility checks. 


bility checks, repairs 


needed or in- 






often does work. 


repairs equipment 
(as needed). 


equipment (as needed). 


structed. 









UTILITY WORKERS 






Directed in- 


As directed may do 


Involved with other 


Assist as ordered these 


As directed, may 


Directed instructed 


structed, assigned 


spot tasks (e.g., get 


workers. 


workers headgate 


do servicing. 


assigned to help head 


by supervisor. Per- 


materials). May as- 




operator - shieldman 


housekeeping, spe- 


gate operator, shield- 


forms all tasks. As- 


sist servicing (e.g., 




tailgate operator - stage 


cial instructions. 


man, (tailgate opera- 


sists operators, sh- 


grease, rockdust 




loader operator (con- 




tor) (e.g., shovels. 


ieldman. Performs 


bits). 




struction crew stallman). 




rockdusts, servicing). 


housekeeping setup 






May relieve shieldman. 






tasks. 






Performs tasks at all 
places on face or outby. 







'Permissibility check, 
includes preoperational checks. 
3 Or 3d shift maintenance 



, 



49 



LONGWALL WORK (SHIFT) 
ORGANIZATION 

Productivity and costs of a longwall system are tied in 
part to the efficient organization of work across shifts. The as- 
signment of labor on a typical shift depends on the amount of 
time longwall crew members perform work related to produc- 
tion, downtime, and maintenance activities. Table 2 shows 
the responsibility of a longwall crew across a shift. 

Longwall mining requires a great deal of coordination 
among workers and continuity in the performance of tasks. 
Workers have to perform assigned tasks in a prescribed way 
to achieve and maintain optimal operational efficiency. 
During downtime periods, work activities are influenced by 
the fact that the supervisor has to reassign workers and 
redistribute workloads. 

Mechanical breakdowns, nonmechanical delays, and 
accidents can affect productivity drastically. The amount of 
available cutting time, according to an analysis of recent 
productivity studies (Peake, (6-7) ). as shown in figure 2, 
company data, as shown in figure 3, and on-site observations 
ranges on the average from only 100 to 170 min per shift. 

Based on productivity figures, mine operators generally 
must reassign workers a lot of the time to nonroutine tasks and/ 
or maintenance work. Production periods still incur more 
injuries than startup or end-of-shift periods. However, 
nonroutine tasks during downtime can account for as much as 
41 pet of reported longwall accidents. 



LONGWALL PRODUCTIVITY 




FIGURE 3.— Monthly summary of production and downtime 
for sample longwall mine. 

Equipment-related work and environmental hazards af- 
fect the longwall crew generally across a typical shift. Falls 
of coal, pans-conveyors, roof support, and mining machinery 
are common agents causing bodily injury to the longwall 
miner. About 40 pet of the injuries were due to lifting, trips, 
falls, or handling materials. 



LONGWALL PRODUCTION 



av ton per shift 



94-in seam 
height 



64-in seam 
height 



45-in seam 
height 






1 ,307 tons 



934 tons 



739 tons 



ggy. Estimated ^^ Estimated &%& 
downtime Xfff{fti face time r ' * * 



FIGURE 2.— Average longwall production per shift by steam height, and estimated production and downtime. 



50 



LONGWALL WORKFORCE 
REQUIREMENTS 



Longwall mining is characterized by a veteran and expe- 
rienced labor force. The average age among longwall workers 
studied is 35 yr and their average total mining experience is 
10 yr. 

A longwall crew (table 3) constitutes a relatively stable 
work group that remains intact over a long period of time (i.e., 
14 to 16 yr), spanning a series of longwall panels and moves. 
Crew sizes range from 4 to 13 workers, down from 30 workers 
on pre- 1970 panels, depending on the degree of control 
technology. Recent technological advancements (e.g., sen- 
sors, microprocessors) suggest that future longwall panels 
may require significantly fewer face workers. 

Generally, workers tend to remain on the longwall panels 
in various occupations, often cross training among these jobs 
and bidding on other longwall jobs but not bidding off the 
longwall panel. These workers, however, experience a sub- 
stantial number of injuries as they move from job to job on the 
longwall. 

A range of accidents occurs to those workers who, on the 
average, have less than 5 yr experience (fig. 4) in their current 
job. This suggests that a worker may have extensive longwall 
experience with skills in one job, but may not possess the skills 
required of a new job assignment. This pattern holds true for 
all longwall workers, except mechanics, electricians, and 
supervisors. 

Based on an analysis of accidents reported by 34 West 
Virginia mines operating 42 longwalls in the 1983-84 period, 
the cumulative lost time for reported injuries can result in a 
substantial loss. Nonfatal days lost (NFDL) at mines studied 
totaled 89 person-months in 1 yr and ^3 person-months the 
other year or about 7 to 8 employee-years or more of work 
annually. 

These facets of longwall mining provide a useful way to 
arrange and analyze operational data for determining specific 
training responses. In using these operational indicators, 



50 



LjJ 

rr 



Q 
Ld 
H 
rr 
o 

Q_ 

UJ 

rr 



rr 

Ixl 
CD 



40- 



30 



20 







I ■ i ■ 
KEY 
Years in present occupa- 
tion (present experience) 

— — Total years in mining 
(total experience) 




-L 



JL 



r 



4 6 8 10 12 
EXPERIENCE, yr 



14 



FIGURE 4.— Longwall experience versus overall experience 
in relation to nonfatal days lost (NFDL) injuries for miners in 
longwall occupations, 1983-84. 



company personnel from various departments can define 
training strategies and choose the most appropriate options for 
improving operational performances. 

Next, this paper uses a scenario to show how managers 
can incorporate TOP into their normal decisionmaking struc- 
ture and improve safety and efficiency of a longwall system 
through an operations-based training strategy. 



; 



Table 3. - Demographic characteristics of longwall workers experiencing injuries, 1983-84 



Age 



Average, yr 




Mining 


Present 


11.3 


4.9 


9.6 


4.2 


11.0 


5.1 


9.2 


4.2 


8.5 


3.0 


10.6 


6.1 


11.8 


6.9 



Injuries, 


Average lost 


pet 


days per injury 


16.3 


18.7 


21.3 


13.2 


5.8 


36.0 


15.9 


23.4 


11.6 


18.7 


16.3 


14.0 


12.8 


20.4 



Shear, plow operator 36 

Shield, jacksetter 32 

Headgate operator 38 

Utility worker 36 

Other labor 33 

Electrician-mechanic 36 

Management-salaried 37 

Average or total 35 



10.4 



5.2 



100.0 



18.7 






51 



LONGWALL MANAGEMENT AND TRAINING 



Longwall mining, as in most other mining methods, re- 
quires management to plan, organize, and control operations 
through the exchange of information in both formal and 
informal meetings. To allocate and use resources efficiently, 
managers must deal with data and information affecting labor, 
equipment, utilities, supplies, materials, and mine-specific 
conditions. Much of this information, as will be shown, may 
also be used and applied to develop a focused training effort 
(as needed) for company personnel. 

For comparison purposes, a scenario will be used here to 
show the differences in using data between a traditional 
management system and a management system employing 
the TOP. The scenario will illustrate a problem discovered by 
a manager of mines on a routine, biweekly visit to a mine's 
longwall panel, which is equipped with a double-ended rang- 
ing drum shearer and two-legged shields. 

First, a description of the problem: The manager of mines 
is observing production work along the panel, and notes that 
a shield mover is having trouble with baseplates digging into 
soft bottom, and that this problem, on occasion, leads to 
downtime. Also, the manager discovers that the worker is not 
placing crib blocks under the shields to help them stay on 
bottom, and tends to keep hydraulic valves open too long 
when resetting shields against the roof. 

The manager learns from the longwall supervisor that this 
particular employee is a fill-in for the regular shield worker, 
that the worker had some previous experience as a fill-in for 
other members of the longwall crew, and that the worker was 
trained on moving shields for 2 h at the beginning of the shift. 
The supervisor, however, acknowledges that this fill-in 
worker has not mastered many of the fine points of the job. 

At end of day, the manager notes that a total of 40 min of 
downtime occurred because of this problem, and that the fill- 
in shield worker was injured when a shield mashed the 
worker's foot into the bottom after it slid off the baseplate of 
an adjacent shield. First aid treatment and transportation from 
the panel interrupted production for another 30 min. 

Now, compare the approaches as managers attempt to 
resolve the longwall problem. 

MANAGEMENT AND INFORMAL 
TRAINING 

Management decisions, including both immediate and 
deferred responses to a problem, may require training of 
hourly or supervisory personnel. Managers usually approach 
training within the traditional decisionmaking structure, and 
such training, which can be critical to cost-efficient longwall 
operations, often defaults to informal or impromptu methods 
(usually involving a supervisor), which often lack new infor- 
mation, effective communications, and guidelines for evalu- 
ation of performances. 



Consider the case of the manager of mines from the 
scenario above. The manager recognizes several problems, 
such as costs of downtime, direct and indirect costs of acci- 
dents, and the company's practice of using partially trained 
workers as fill-ins for regular longwall crew members. What 
does the traditional management system offer, in the way of 
information, in order to solve the dilemma? What tools are 
available to help managers develop a planned, focused train- 
ing effort to make operations more cost efficient? 

Taking the problem back to the company's monthly 
review meeting, the manager of mines has to deal with the 
following: 

The coal mine management system typically consists of 
three levels at which managers consider data and/or informa- 
tion regarding mining operations: 

1. Monthly Divisional or Corporate Meeting s. — Here 
managers review operational performances, discuss costs and 
productivity, determine capital and staff support of major 
work requirements, and analyze operational problems that 
potentially impact productivity. 

Types of data and information generated for and by this 
level includes comparisons between established goals and 
present performance levels, labor assignment and supply 
delivery schedules, equipment maintenance and utilization 
plans, and other operational data (e.g., machine-panel de- 
signs, work practices). 

2. Weekly Mine Planning Meetings.— These are de- 
signed to coordinate various work requirements among de- 
partments, to plan new jobs and weekend or idle work, follow 
up on progress of projects, and to examine operational prob- 
lems and determine solutions. 

At this level, information reflects operational perform- 
ances, which may be directed at supporting a particular 
manager ' s position regarding a problem , costs of mining, and 
accomplishment of work according to new or revised sched- 
ules. Performance measures usually include productivity 
figures, downtime hours worked on support and maintenance, 
consumption of supplies, accidents and violations, and a line 
item summary of mining costs. 

3. Informal Mine Meetings.— At this level, meetings 
may involve preshift coordination sessions at the supervisor 
staging area, where personnel relate and transfer information, 
generally in an unsummarized format, which bears directly on 
the previous shift's impact on the present status of sections 
and jobs. 

Specific information exchanged includes physical condi- 
tions, equipment locations on sections or panels, status of 
supplies, materials, mechanical availability of equipment, and 
status of ongoing work (e.g., track-belt installation or re- 
moval, cable power center moves, construction of stoppings). 
At this level, such information determines jobs that must be 
accomplished simultaneously with production to ensure 



52 



uninterrupted operations, and assists managers in updating 
and revising work schedules for efficiency. 

At each stage in this decisionmaking process, personnel 
handle and review different kinds of data and information. 
Each level involves assignment of jobs, scheduling of work, 
or adjusting schedules based on updated information and 
input from various personnel to comply with operational 
objectives. 

The manager of mines, given this system, has many ways 
to turn to resolve the recognized problem. However, how does 
the manager begin to state the case for either training of fill- 
ins or reduction of accidents to avoid unplanned downtime? 
What information is required to make the decision? Who does 
top management charge with the responsibility for training? 

Without guidelines for incorporating operational data 
into decisions for training, managers may discuss a problem 
and then defer action or take immediate, ineffective steps to 
remedy the situation. If they make an immediate decision to 
train workers as fill-ins, how do they implement their plan? If 
they defer action because they need additional information, 
what helps them determine the types of data needed to be 
collected? 

Here is what might have transpired in the scenario: 

After considering the problem, top manage- 
ment decides to train additional workers to serve 
as substitutes for regular longwall crew mem- 
bers. In so doing, the management team charges 
the supervisor with the training responsibility. 
With time at a premium, especially on the part of 
the supervisor, operational limitations often re- 
sult in transfer of only the most basic aspect of 
job requirements to the worker (i.e., the func- 
tional aspects of performing a task or operating 
machinery). 

Training of this nature quite often falls short on followup 
evaluation. Also, misinterpretation of intent, inability to 
implement actions, or inattention to detail may prevent proper 
implementation of desired instructions. 

The training experience, hence, becomes one of self- 
learning. As the worker encounters problems, he or she 
focuses only on those essentials needed to maintain 
operational performance. Often, the trainee may have to ask 
the supervisor or a fellow worker for the proper way to handle 
a problem. Or, unfortunately, this person may use faulty 
reasoning in order to accomplish a sequence of tasks. Such an 
informal approach often leads to shortcuts as the worker tries 
to get the job done without understanding the potential for 
mishaps, which may result in downtime and/or injury. 

FORMALIZING TRAINING WITH TOP 

Features of the TOP provide a way for managers, begin- 
ning at the monthly review meeting, to focus on a specific 



concern such as the problem observed by the mine manager in 
the shield mover scenario. Working within the traditional 
management system, here is how TOP can systematically 
address the problems raised by the mine manager. 

1. Developing a Training Strategy— Step 1 of TOP f fig. 
5) is initiated when the mine manager and other key personnel 
discuss the observed problem at the monthly review meeting. 
Only this time, managers have access to the TOP system and 
program guidelines. Here is what may transpire: 

At the monthly review meeting, the manager of mines 
states the case for developing the skills of fill-in workers 
through training. The manager relates the issue to key person- 
nel at the meeting: the superintendent of the mine, director of 
safety and training, controller, and the chief engineer. 

The manager presents the facts: The injured worker was 
off 18 days and the accrued costs of the accident (e.g., direct 
and indirect expenses) is $4,600 so far, and the 70 m in of 
downtime translates into nearly a $9,000 cost considering idle 
equipment and personnel. Then, the manager charges the 
mine superintendent with the responsibility to train a number 
of employees to be proficient as fill-ins for all longwall jobs, 
and asks for a report on progress in 1 month. 

2. Planning Training and Evaluation . — Given an area of 
focus, commitment by upper level management, and keeping 
projected benefits in mind, key mine-level personnel initiate 
step 2 (fig. 6) and begin to formulate specific objectives. 
These objectives should be quantifiable as far as possible to 
permit evaluation of progress. 

At the weekly planning meeting, the superintendent ex- 
plains the situation and costs incurred to key personnel: 
longwall coordinator, general mine supervisor, chief electri- 
cian, outside sueprvisor, trainer and others. "Does a problem 
exist and, if so, how many workers should we train as fill-ins?" 
the superintendent asks of the group. The longwall coordina- 
tor suggests that four workers be trained as fill-ins for various 
longwall jobs, and that the mine could gain much operational 
flexibility as well as guard against a recurrence of the previous 
experience. 

After obtaining a consensus, the superintendent charges 
the trainer and safety director to draw up a plan for training 
four workers and estimate total costs. The superintendent will 
choose the trainees after consulting with the mine supervisor, 
longwall coordinator, shift supervisor, and the mine commit- 
tee. 

In a related move, the superintendent requests the chief 
engineer to project potential benefits of this training approach 
(i.e., training employees as fill-ins for regular workers who 
were off or sick). "How much could we have saved over the 
past 3 months, in terms of production time lost and costs of 
accidents, if we already had well-trained workers to fill in as 
needed?" 

Next, the trainer assesses training resources and their 
compatibility with specific objectives, tailors materials, and 
develops a tentative training plan and timetable. Also, man- 
agement determines specific information and data to be col- 



53 



lected during and after training, so that the company will 
obtain an accurate evaluation of the impact of training on 
operations and achievement of objectives. 

This step requires thought on how and when to obtain 
data, analyze and summarize it, and present it to personnel 
throughout the organization. At this point, data and informa- 
tion must reflect performance levels resulting from changes 
and allow for comparisons between new performance levels 
and acceptable standards. (Types of data are referred to under 
weekly planning meetings.) 



Consider: 

1. Overall goals 

2. Existing training 

3. Changes in operations 

4. Operational problems 

5. Worker or supervisor needs 

6. Feedback 



Areas of focus 
Improve an operational area 
Reduce risks 
New skills 
Upgrade skills 
Cross training 
Transfer job knowledge 



Determine commitment 
Training resources 
Planning and scheduling 
Evaluation tools 
Money 
Personnel 
Communications and feedback 



I 



Project benefits 



To planning phase 



3. Scheduling Training and Data Collection .— This 
planning process then leads to step 3 (fig. 7) of TOP. Manage- 
ment schedules and executes training plans, bearing in mind 
the need for types of training, specific times and trainees, 
operational contingencies, and potential revisions of the plan. 
Also, a schedule is set for specific data collection activities, 
which may require coordination between training and 
operations personnel. 

4. Evaluating Data and Information . — This step (fig. 8) 
involves evaluation of the training impact on operations and 
in achieving specific objectives. Decisions focus on applica- 
tion of specific data analysis methods, and use of summary 
statistics or information for assessing the training impact 



Input: training strategy 
components 

Focus areas: commitments; projected benefits 



Develop specific objectives 
examples: 
Control roof behavior on headgate area 
Train mechanics on circuitry 
Retrain in work area preparation 
Cross train fill-in workers as shield 
movers 



Focus on training 

1. Analyze resources 

2. Address specific objectives 

3. Match specific requirements 

4. Select appropriate trainer 

5. Make tentative plan 



I 



Focus on evaluation 

Data and information required 

Data collection and evaluation methods 

Feedback process 



I 



To scheduling phase 



FIGURE 5.— Developing a training strategy. 



FIGURE 6.— Planning TOP. 



54 




Scheduling training sessions 

Specific times 

General timetable 

Period for selected workers 



Schedule data collection 

Performance monitoring 
Information gathering 
Analysis period 

Followup visits 
Reporting dates 
Feedback meetings 



Perform training 

As scheduled 

collect data 

Revise as needed 

Update resources 



To evaluation phase 



^.>>^»^AA^^^^-AC^:^^r:^vr 1 x.sW^^v:^>;^V^v.»^;Av^.»^^a 



FIGURE 7.— Scheduling TOP. 



Afterwards, the results of evaluation will be presented in 
various visual and graphic forms to distinct audiences within 
the company. Care must be taken to ensure that methods of 
presentation are compatible with the audience in order to elicit 
appropriate feedback. 

5. Feedback and Adjustment— Feedback from person- 
nel at various levels is a critical function of the TOP system. 
This effort (fig. 9) provides information to operating and staff 
personnel regarding results from training and attainment of 
objectives, and obtains constructive comments from them 



Input: actual training data and information 
collected; pending schedules 



Assess and adjust evaluation methods 



Perform evaluations and summarize 



Effectively display results of evaluations 



Determine methods of presentation 



' j.kumw^w/Ji ' !■' - «' i. » *ui ' ■ ■ T' '|W^»J ' ..i. i i. « M < 



!«^*T 



— BWB ;*«v — . « l— ■ ».*.", ' i. p y*"-',W£ 



To feedback and adjustment phase 



FIGURE 8.— Evaluation in TOP. 



Input: Evaluations of training impact on 

operations and in achievement of 

objectives 



Give and receive feedback 



Analyze results of evaluations 
and feedback sessions 



Disseminate results 



Develop new strategies 

MWrwfiii? , tAva;-if--vffi<-*»ri-ft : fri-i^-f-iHW« , i«ii , v,;ir ^vjii^irr.v'.'rhv««.v,Tr^-it-»'»r.ii 



FIGURE 9.— Feedback in TOP. 



55 



regarding shortcomings of training, the TOP methodology, 
formulation of plans or schedules, or practicality in tackling 
other areas of concern. 

Following this interaction, managers can make adjust- 
ments to improve the program, amend objectives, continue as 
planned, or concentrate more heavily on other operational 
problems. Finally, dissemination of results to all appropriate 
levels in the organization ensures commitment from various 
personnel and keeps them abreast of results. Hence, this 
process will lead to new strategies (involving other areas of 
focus), new plans, and updated schedules in a systematic and 
continuous manner. 

As the scenario depicts, TOP guides managers toward the 
achievement of safer and more efficient operations through a 
process aimed at mastering longwall changes or innovations 
and monitoring performance requirements. This leads to 



better control of operational performances and an effective 
way for measuring the training impact on operations. 

In mastering changes, managers can adjust training to 
match anticipated modifications in work practices. This 
permits development of specific objectives which translate 
operational needs into training plans and schedules. By 
monitoring performance levels, management can evaluate 
results and make adjustments in training to meet operational 
needs. This results in the continuous use of operational data 
for upgrading the skills of the longwall workforce. 

Thus, TOP provides managers with a way to better 
control operational conditions for high performance of a 
longwall system. It gives mine operators a perspective for 
developing a specific operations-based training strategy and 
for assessing the impact of training on safety and efficiency. 



CONCLUSION 



The characteristics of U.S. longwall mining, coupled 
with global coal market conditions, emphasize a necessity for 
management to plan and organize training to reduce and make 
effective use of unplanned downtime, develop worker profi- 
ciency and eliminate performance errors, and improve both 
the efficiency and safety of longwall technology. These are 
imperatives managers cannot afford to forfeit. 

Longwall productivity and accident experience, as dis- 
cussed in this paper, indicated that management can reduce 
downtime and lost workdays by paying close attention to 
detail and developing an operations-based training strategy to 
address operational problems in a systematic fashion. 

The TOP offers a formalized methodology for guiding 
and assisting management in the application of data and infor- 
mation to improve operational performances as part of a 
company's normal decisionmaking process. It can provide 



benefits by allowing management to create a schedule of 
training requirements directed at — 

• Individual or crew work practices, 

• Familiarization of crew members with new or modified 
machinery or changing physical conditions, and 

• Development of auxiliary personnel to perform longwall 
operational or support activities. 

This operations-based strategy provides managers with a 
tool for improving operational safety and efficiency and for 
accomplishing various types of training as described in this 
paper. This approach to longwall operations can ensure ac- 
complishment of intended objectives for developing profi- 
cient longwall workers and, in the end, higher productivity. 



REFERENCES 



1. Harrold, R. Jim Walters' Training Program. Ch. in 
Coal Age Second Operating Handbook of Underground 
Mining, ed. by N. P. Chironis. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 390- 
395. 

2. Jackson, D. Emery Mining Turns to Longwalls. Ch. 
in Coal Age Second Operating Handbook of Underground 
Mining, ed. by N. P. Chironis. McGraw-Hill, 1980, pp. 72-75. 

3. Longwall Training Smooths Start-up. Coal Min. and 
Process., v. 19, No. 2, 1982, pp. 46-48. 

4. Riddell, M., and J. Savage. The Introduction of 
Mechanised Longwall Systems — An Integrated Approach to 



Training. Paper in Proceedings, Second International Sympo- 
sium on Training in the Prevention of Occupational Risks in 
the Mining Industry, ed. by F. L. Misaqi. MSHA (U.S. Dep. 
Labor), 1981, pp. 51-65. 

5. Sprouls, M. W. Longwall Census '87. Coal Min. 
Process., v. 24, No. 2, 1987, pp. 26-41. 

6. Peake, C. V. Longwall Output Continues to Rise. 
Coal Age, v. 91, No. 8, 1986, pp. 58-60. 

7. Longwall Productivity in U.S . Mining Contin- 
ues to Climb. Coal Age, v. 90, No. 8, 1985, pp. 68-69. 



56 



MINER AND TRAINER RESPONSES TO SIMULATED MINE EMERGENCY 

PROBLEMS 



By Henry P. Cole 1 and Staff, University of Kentucky 2 



ABSTRACT 

This paper reports the results of a Bureau of Mines sponsored field test of 1 8 exercises intended 
to teach and assess miner proficiency in dealing with simulated mine emergencies. The problems are 
written from the perspective of the person working the exercise, and use latent image ink to provide 
feedback on any course of action listed as an alternative for each question. In this manner, the exercise 
takes the miner through decision points much like the ones he or she would be faced with in an actual 
emergency. Data collected from 1,500 underground miners in six States indicate that trainees over- 
whelmingly judged the exercises as being realistic and authentic, helpful in reminding miners of 
important things and in learning something new, of a suitable length, and highly enjoyable to work. 



INTRODUCTION 



When an emergency situation develops in the isolated 
environment of an underground coal mine, the well-being of 
the miners and the mine depends upon the early recognition of 
the problem and prompt responses to prevent, limit, or escape 
from the emergency. Civil and military aircraft flight crews 
face similar problems during inflight emergencies. Research 
suggests that paper and pencil and/or computer presented 
simulations of inflight emergencies can better prepare air- 
crews to recognize and cope with actual nonroutine critical 
events (Brecke (l), 3 Flathers (2), Giffin Q), and Jensen (4)). 
Similar extensive research suggests that training physicians 
and other medical personnel in medical diagnostic judgment 
and decisionmaking can be facilitated by simulation exercises 
(Babbott (5_),Berner (£), Dugdale (7), Elstein (8J, Gilbert (2), 
Jones QP_),McGuire (11-131 . and Rimoldi (14)). These types 



of simulations have come to be used extensively in the training 
of many kinds of military personnel in a wide range of 
problem solving tasks (Halff Q5J). Simulation exercises are 
sometimes constructed using latent image (invisible) ink and 
paper and pencil tests. When the person makes a choice in a 
simulated diagnostic procedure, a special pen is used to mark 
in a space on the paper. A message appears and tells the test 
taker the consequences of his or her decision or action. 
Computers, role playing, physical models (manikins), and 
case reviews are also used to teach and assess proficiency in 
medical diagnostic and decision making skills. The extensive 
research literature about these simulations provides much 
information about how to teach and assess proficiency in 
fields where critical judgment and decision making are re- 
quired for health and safety. 



'Educational psychologist 

2 R. D. Wasielewski, G. T. Lineberry, A. Wala, L. Mallett, J. V. 
Haley, W. E. Lacefleld, and P. K. Berger, University of Kentucky, 
Lexington, KY. 



'Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to items in the list of 
references preceding the appendix at the end of this paper. 



57 



LATENT IMAGE SIMULATION EXERCISES FOR COAL MINERS 



Under a Bureau of Mines contract, researchers at the 
University of Kentucky Institute for Mining and Minerals 
Research, Behavioral Research Aspects of Safety and Health 
working group have developed similar simulation materials 
for underground coal miners. The materials are problems that 
require miners to recognize and cope with developing emer- 
gency events in underground mines. 

Problem scenarios are developed based upon actual mine 
emergencies involving fires, explosions, water and gas inun- 
dations, roof falls, equipment failures, serious injuries, and 
sudden illnesses. The scenarios are authentic with respect to 
both the language and context of underground mining. As a 
problem unfolds miners must first gather information. They 
must then make judgments and decisions about what addi- 
tional information they need, how to obtain the information, 
and ultimately what actions to take in what order. Proficient 



and efficient responses result in miners working the problem 
to prevent or minimize the accident or emergency. Errors in 
information gathering, interpretation, judgment, and deci- 
sionmaking lead to actions that worsen the situation. Thus, in 
the safety of a training room, miners experience vicariously 
the consequences of good and bad judgment and decision- 
making. It is not uncommon for a miner working the problem 
to end up "dead" or in deep trouble. When this happens, the 
miner is attentive to the information and procedures that are 
included in the remediation portion of the exercise. The 
remediation is intended to correct errors miners make in re- 
sponding to the simulation problem. The intention is to 
improve the ability of miners for coping with the judgment 
and decisionmaking aspects of actual mine emergencies that 
may be encountered in the workplace. 



TRADITIONAL ANNUAL REFRESHER TRAINING 



For the past several years, members of the research 
project have attended many annual refresher training classes 
at many sites in several States both as observers and as par- 
ticipants. Observations of these sessions are sufficiently 
varied and lengthy to support the following generalizations: 

1 . Instruction for rote learning of information is the most 
common technique used by trainers. 

2. There is a heavy reliance on the same sets of training 
films from year to year. 

3. Trainees frequently fail to attend to the problem at 
hand, often dividing their attention between what is going on 
at the front of the room and interpersonal interactions with 
those around them. 

4. When games are used, they usually focus on low-level 
factual recall of information — in addition, the mechanics of 
the games tend to compete for the miner and instructor atten- 
tion and often detract from the content. 

5. Many classes are characterized by relatively great 
amounts of time wasted, in the sense that it is spent on pursuits 
that are not goal oriented. 

6. Parts of the typical daily program sometimes degen- 
erate into complaint sessions with little of a concrete nature 
being accomplished. 

7. The times when miners are most task oriented, atten- 
tive, and involved is when there is opportunity to discuss and 
resolve a problem in work procedures, or in discussing a 
hypothetical or actual first aid, fire, or other emergency. 

8. Class members also tend to be alert and involved 
when opportunity exists for hands-on practice of specific 
skills or tasks such as simulated first aid treatment of victims, 
or the use of mine rescue equipment, or firefighting apparatus. 



Instructional materials that have good potential use often 
fail to achieve that potential. For example, the Mine Safety 
and Health Administration (MSHA) Fatal Illustrations pro- 
gram has the potential to involve miners and instructors in 
productive indepth discussion, analysis, and planning. How- 
ever, this potential is possible only when one or two fatal 
illustrations are selected for indepth attention. Yet, it is not 
uncommon for an instructor to show 20 to 30 of these fatal 
illustrations one after the other with an accompanying audio- 
tape that presents the narrative for each accident. This method 
presents too much material, too rapidly, with little or no 
opportunity for miner involvement Heavy use of training 
films one after the other, without time to think and talk about 
the film content, presents similar problems. Many studies 
have shown it is far more effective to focus on one or two 
issues that have direct relevance for the learners, and to en- 
courage their dialogue and active involvement about these 
issues (Bransford (16), Cole (12). and Halpern Q8J). 

In summary, the content of annual refresher training is 
usually important and relevant. The opportunity for miners to 
become interested in the content presented and actively in- 
volved in discussing, debating, and generalizing it to their own 
experience is often limited. There tends to be little focus on 
problem solving and decisionmaking. There are, of course, 
exceptions and very capable instructors who teach effectively 
using a variety of methods that interest and involve miners. 

Even when annual refresher classes are dull and uninter- 
esting, in almost all cases the instructors are technically com- 
petent and respected by the miners in their classes. But both 
instructors and miner often appear bored by the typical pace, 
method, and topics of instruction. 



58 



DEVELOPING LATENT IMAGE SIMULATION EXERCISES ABOUT MINE EMERGENCIES 



Using accident reports and the help of experienced mine 
safety personnel, a number of simulation exercises have been 
developed for teaching and assessing miner skills for respond- 
ing to underground coal mine emergencies. The exercises are 
similar in structure to those used successfully to train for 
judgment and decisionmaking skills in emergency situations 
in medicine, aviation, and the military. 

Problem scenarios accompanied by maps and illustra- 
tions are developed from reviews of actual mine emergencies 
reported in accident investigations. Sometimes scenarios are 
developed from the experience of miners, mine rescue team 
members, and mine inspectors. Usually, as a scenario unfolds 
there are predicaments. At some stages in the problem it is 
often unclear what series of correct actions is necessary to 
avoid or lessen the impact of an ongoing or impending acci- 
dent. Each exercise presents a problem that unfolds over time. 
Just as in real life, the miner knows something of what has 
happened in the past, but cannot know what the future holds. 
However, just as in life, wise and canny miners can anticipate 
what actions, choices, and failures to act will likely alter 
future events, for better or worse. Constructing such infer- 
ences about a best course of action based on available data is 
what real life problem solving requires in mine emergencies. 
The simulation exercises are designed to approximate this 
situation. 

Once they are developed, the realistic exercise scenarios 
are then discussed in small groups of experienced miners, 
emergency medical technicians, and mine rescue personnel. 
As the discussion progresses, good and bad options for coping 
with the problem at each of several stages emerge. This 
information is recorded and later used to construct individual 
questions and correct and incorrect answers to these questions 
for each scenario. Once developed, these prototype latent 
image format exercises are authenticated with small groups of 
other experts. The exercises are then revised, produced, and 
field tested with working miners in annual refresher training 
classes. All the exercises concern either first aid or self-rescue 
and escape situations. 

The exercises are written as if the problem were develop- 



ing and unfolding for the person who completes the exercise. 
The appendix to this paper shows the beginning of one first aid 
exercise. The basic background and problem information is 
presented succinctly in simple language. Simple line drawing 
illustrations appear in the printed exercise booklet and help to 
further describe the problem. 

After studying the problem situation and illustrations, 
miners work the problems by reading a series of multiple 
choice type questions that appear in a problem book, with one 
question per page. A separate answer sheet contains sets of 
brackets that enclose each latent (invisible) image message for 
each course of action listed as an alternative for each question. 
When the miner makes a decision and selects a particular 
alternative, he or she colors between the brackets with a 
special marking pen. Immediately, the invisible ink becomes 
visible, and the miner is informed of the correctness or incor- 
rectness of the response. Often, additional information that 
would normally result from that action is also presented. 
Thus, miners soon learn the consequences of their choice, the 
inadequacy or the value of a particular response, again similar 
to the manner in which such feedback is received for decision 
points and choices in actual mine emergency situations. In 
this manner, the exercise takes the miner through from 6 tol2 
steps in the problem where information must be gathered, 
decisions made, or action taken. The exercises are designed 
to teach as they simultaneously assess miner proficiency in 
dealing with the problems presented. 

The appendix to this paper also illustrates part of another 
exercise, this one dealing with escape from smoke and gases 
originating in an unknown area of a mine. It too presents a 
complex problem in simple language and makes use of mine 
section maps to provide information needed to make decisions 
as the problem unfolds. 

Thirty exercises like these have been developed to date. 
Once an exercise is developed in a latent image format it can 
be converted to a computer-administered format Some exer- 
cises, especially in the first aid area, also lend themselves to 
role playing simulations with miners acting out the role of 
victim and first-aiders. 



RESULTS OF FIELD TESTING 



In 1986, 18 exercises were field tested in 84 annual re- 
fresher training classes at 20 sites" in six States with approxi- 
mately 1,500 underground coal miners. Large and small 
mines, union and nonunion companies, high and low coal 
seam mining conditions, and various mining methods and 
techniques are represented in the sample. The basic demo- 
graphic characteristics of this group of miners are presented in 

"The 20 sites were distributed across the Kentucky, West Virginia 
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, and Illinois coalfields. 



table 1 . The distribution of age, gender, and job classification 
in this sample closely matches the observed distribution of 
these characteristics in other national samples of miners 
(Rockefeller (19)). The job classification miner includes all 
persons in regular and direct coal production jobs under- 
ground. The maintenance-technical classification includes 
mechanics, electricians, masons, carpenters, belt setup crews. 
surveyors, inspectors, engineers, geologists, and others who 
work underground but not directly in production. The super- 
visory-management classification includes all managers from 






59 



TABLE 1. - Basic demographic characteristics of 
underground coal miners from 6 states, 20 sites, and 
84 annual refresher training classes In 1986 



Number 



Age 1,298 

Experience 1,219 

Number 
Gender distribution: 

Male 1,256 

Female 35 



Job classification: 

Miner 1,031 

Maintenance/ 

technical 197 

Supervisory/ 

management 146 

Other ....191 

Total 1,565 



Mode Mean Std dev 



35 
10 



37.0 
12.2 



9.0 
7.0 



Frequency, pet 

97.3 
2.7 



65.9 

12.6 

9.3 
12.2 



100.0 



the section foreman up through general mine foreman, super- 
intendent, and top company management. The other classifi- 
cation includes clerical and office personnel, preparation 
plant and surface mine workers, accountants, laboratory 
workers, and others who work on the surface, but who some- 
times participate in annual refresher training. Generally the 
classes were small, averaging about 16 miners (see table 2). 

In addition to completing the exercise answer sheet, 
miners also completed a rating form and made written com- 
ments about the exercise. Miners at all sites judged the 
exercises very favorably, as can be seen by inspection of 
table 3 . In particular, exercises were judged as being realistic 
and authentic, helpful in reminding miners of important things 
and in learning something new, to be about the right length, 
and enjoyable. In addition to the instructor's directions, the 
exercise written directions and graphics were judged as easy 
to comprehend, and the entire exercise as easy to read. 

About 19 pet of the sample reported difficulty in under- 
standing how to score their performance. Subsequent revi- 
sions of exercises have simplified scoring procedures and 
eliminated this problem. Inspection of individual exercise 
data revealed little variation in ratings of miners across the 
judgment categories. Generally, all exercises were rated 

TABLE 2. - Typical number of miners per class 

Statistic Value 

Mode 17.0 

Mean 15.5 

Standard deviation 8.7 



uniformly high on all categories, except for clarity of scoring 
procedures. 

For each class administration, the instructor also com- 
pleted a questionnaire that solicited information about(l) how 
the exercise was introduced and administered, (2) if the 
instructor modified the exercise in any way, (3) the observed 
frequency of reading problems among miners in the class as 
they worked the exercise, and (4) the instructor's judgment 
about key aspects of the exercise. The judgment categories 
included the degree to which miners were able to understand 
the instructor's directions, the clarity of written directions and 
graphics in the exercise, and the scoring procedures. The 
instructor also was asked to judge the appropriateness of the 
performance objectives, the relevance of the exercise for the 
annual refresher training class, and whether more exercises 
like these should be used in the future in other classes. Instruc- 
tors also were asked to make comments to improve the exer- 
cise, and many did so, usually indicating they also would like 
to have more exercises developed for use in the future. 

TABLE 3. - Rating of the validity, relevance, quality, 
and utility of 18 exercises in 6 States, 20 sites, and 
84 annual refresher training classes in 1986 

(Completed data sets, 1,213) 



Miner judgment category 



Yes No 



Exercise content is authentic 97.4 2.0 

Working exercise will help me 

to remember important things 95.4 3.9 

Learned something new from 

working the exercise 86.3 12.8 

The exercise was too long 15.9 83.2 

Liked working the exercise 89.0 10.1 

Instructor directions clear 94.3 4.8 

Written directions in the exercise are clear 86.1 13.0 

Graphics in exercise are easy to understand 92.1 7.0 

The procedures for scoring my performance 

are easy to understand 79.3 18.5 

The exercise is easy to read 92.8 6.4 

The summary data for the instructor's questionnaire are 
presented in table 4. Most instructors administered the exer- 
cise individually, in large part because they were requested to 
do so, to enable the correlation of miner performance scores 
with their questionnaire data. Given a free choice, the major- 
ity of instructors report they prefer to administer the exercises 
in small groups of from three to five miners per group. There 
are three reasons for this. First, the latent image answer sheets, 
which are consumable, last longer this way and more classes 
of miners can be taught with fewer of these materials. Second, 
most individual class members prefer to work the exercises 
cooperatively in small groups rather than individually. Once 



60 



TABLE 4. - Percentages of instructors in 84 classes 
responding to questions about exercise administra- 
tion options 

Administration format: 

Administered individually, 1 exercise 

booklet per miner 77.2 

Presented exercise on transparencies 

while each miner responded individually 15.8 

Presented exercise on transparencies 

while class members responded as a group 5.3 

Used 1 exercise per small group 

in several groups per class 1.8 

Used computer-aided instruction 

format 0.0 

Explanation or direction provided: 

Explained how to work the exercise 

and use the latent image pen 90.5 

Made general comments about the 

exercise problem prior to miners working the 

exercise 69.0 

Answered some questions as 

they worked the exercise 57.1 

Led miners through the exercise 

questions, page by page 14.3 

Provided other types of explanations 

and direction for working the exercise 3.6 

Instructor action: 

Instructor did not modify 

the exercise 93.7 

Instructor did use the discussion notes 

after the miners finished workingthe exercise ..83.2 

miners have worked an exercise as part of a small group, they 
usually resist attempts to have them work a second exercise 
individually. Third, in actual mine emergencies and in routine 
mine work, miners are generally required to work together. 
Working the simulation exercises in small groups may actu- 
ally be more valid for teaching and assessing miner judgment 

TABLE 5. -Frequency of miners who had difficulty in 
reading the exercise as reported by instructors, 51 
classes 



Miners with 


Classes 






reading problems 


Number 


pet 







28 


54.9 




1 


14 


27.5 




2 


6 


11.8 




3 


3 


5.9 





and decisionmaking skills than having them work independ- 
endy. Just as in real life the opportunity exists for the group 
decision at critical points to be informed or misinformed by 
members of the group with special status, authority, and 
expertise. 

As shown by table 4, before administering the exercise 
about 91 pet of instructors explained the mechanics of work- 
ing the exercise, and 69 pet commented on the problem. In 
about 57 pet of the classes, instructors reported answering 
some questions by miners as they worked the problem. Obser- 
vation of field sites suggest most of these questions by miners 
concerned matters of procedure and clarification of the mean- 
ing of specific words and phrases to be consistent with local 
conventions, e.g. "Is a belt control line the same as our Air 
Alert system?" or "Is the expression dinner hole what we call 
the kitchen?" Only about 14 pet of the classes had an instructor 
who led the miners through the exercise in a lockstep fashion, 
a method that is generally distracting and annoying to trainees. 
About 94 pet of class instructors reported making no modifi- 
cations to the exercise, and 83 pet reported using the instruc- 
tor discussion notes provided with the exercise (see table 4). 
These data and many field observations suggest instructors 
administered the exercises as intended. 

Instructors' observations also verified that miners have 
few problems in reading the exercises (see table 5). Instruc- 
tors from 51 classes reported on this topic. These instructors 
reported that 55 pet of classes had no miners who experienced 
difficulty in reading the exercises. In about 28 pet of these 
classes, one miner experienced reading difficulty. Classes in 
which two miners experienced reading difficulty constituted 
11.8 pet of these 51 classes. Only 5.9 pet of the classes 
reported three miners who experienced reading problems. No 
more than three miners with reading problems were ever 
reported. Table 5 summarizes these results of instructor 
observations of the frequency of miners' reading problems. 

TABLE 6. - Amount of time needed by the slowest 
class member to complete the exercise, as reported 
by instructor, 84 classes, minutes 

Mode 30.0 

Mean 43.1 

Standard deviation 22.9 



Inspection of table 7 reveals that instructor judgments of 
the relevance, quality, and clarity of exercise content parallel 
those of the miners. With the exception of clarity of scoring 
procedures, all aspects of the exercises were rated highly, as 
can be seen in the small standard deviations for each variable 
in table 7. The appropriateness of the performance objectives, 
the use of the exercises in annual refresher training classes, 
and the judgment that more exercises like these should be 
developed and used in the future received exceptionally high 
ratings from instructors. 






TABLE 7. • Instructor ratings of exercise clarity, quality, objectives, and relevance, 84 classes 



61 



Rating category Strongly agree Strongly disagree 

4 3 2 1 

Miners understood-- 

Instructor directions 52.6 43.6 2.6 1.3 

Written directions in exercise 46.8 44.3 8.9 0.0 

Graphics in exercise 65.4 33.3 1.3 0.0 

Scoring procedures 26.9 29.5 24.4 17.9 

Performance objectives are 

appropriate 72.2 25.3 2.5 0.0 

Exercise fitted well with annual 

refresher training 87.2 10.3 2.6 0.0 

More exercises like these should 

be used in the future 91.0 7.7 1.3 0.0 

TABLE 8. - Exercise list and word count 

Exercise 1 HT OBJ 2 PB MAS 

Apparent Diving Accident 306 217 938 496 

ArnelVBeam 1,218 267 728 471 

Bob Hall 2 300 147 1,134 570 

BennieJFloyd 308 169 665 407 

Bubba 295 234 1,786 1,372 

CleoCPike Rev 

Geo C Pike Simulation 3 3,011 NAp 

Cecil 278 228 1,766 1,114 

Cutthrough Ventilation Arrangement ....3 12 408 2,140 1,225 

Douglas O Tacket 278 142 950 506 

Delta Mine Cutthrough 4 NA 262 1,974 NAp 

Drainway Entry 294 264 1,208 840 

Fix-It 309 287 668 612 

Harry Hastings 295 PB 1,264 566 

Harry Harlan 299 163 985 447 

Harry Harlan Simulation 3 3,222 NAp 

Hot Shuttle Car 308 141 1,151 929 

J.J.Johnson 309 200 1,159 663 

J.J.Smith 300 201 1,227 790 

Jupiter Mine Fire Inc 

Low Coal Fire 315 271 1,699 1,312 

Marvin R. Letcher 309 316 1,829 971 

Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 3 3,587 NAp 

Persephone Mine Explosion 300 148 966 497 

Roof Fall Entrapment 308 160 1,706 793 

Thurman "HAP" Anderson 309 320 2,553 1,474 

Traumatic Head Injury 316 194 1,383 827 

Vulcan Mine Ignition 308 258 2,308 1,279 

Vulcan Mine Recovery 1,295 323 2,395 1,449 

Water Line Repair 309 408 1,538 894 



Mean 



Std 
dev 



3.47 


.62 


3.38 


.65 


3.64 


.51 


2.63 


1.11 



3.67 
3.84 
3.90 



.52 
.43 
.35 



DN 



2 AS 



^IA 



1,068 


203 


300 


1,098 


185 


294 


918 


244 


333 


798 


181 


230 


1,850 


226 


1,172 











2,393 


248 


872 


2,951 


473 


807 


915 


219 


294 


3,121 


500 


NAp 


932 


176 


671 


1,108 


114 


507 


1,232 


223 


353 


1,150 


199 


254 











1,206 


228 


708 


1,219 


140 


530 


1,365 


243 


555 


1,843 


306 


1,097 


2,002 


167 


810 











685 


199 


305 


1,122 


267 


533 


2,247 


193 


1,288 


1,085 


234 


1,288 


1,755 


158 


1,128 


3,638 


199 


1,257 


962 


138 


763 



AS Answer sheet. 
DN Discussion notes. 
HT How to use this exercise. 
Inc Exercise is incomplete. 
LIA Latent image answers. 



PB Problem booklet. 

Rev Exercise under revision. 

MAS Master answer sheet. 

NAp Not applicable. 

OBJ Performance objectives. 



"Except as noted, all exercises have a latent image format. 
2 Only parts read by trainees. 
3 Role play simulation format. 
4 Essay format. 



62 



When developing the exercises, a major concern was to 
keep them short. Most similar simulation exercises used in 
other fields tend to be much longer and often require as much 
as 2 or 3 h to complete. In annual refresher training classes 
the available yearly time for instruction is only 8 h. Any 
materials that are likely to be used must be well-organized, 
brief, and time efficient The exercises meet these criteria 
Instructors reported the time required for the slowest member 
of their classes to complete the exercise. The mean time of 



about 43 min reported in table 6 is actually longer than the 
typical time needed by the typical miner. The standard 
deviation for this variable is large for two reasons. First, 
exercise length varies quite a bit Some exercises are long and 
others are short, as can be seen from inspection of table 8. 
Second, there is wide variation in the reading speed and com- 
prehension of any group of adults, including underground 
coal miners. 



WHY THE EXERCISES ARE EASY TO READ 



Another major concern early in the project was that many 
miners would not be able to or would not want to read long 
written paper and pencil exercises. From the beginning, the 
exercises were designed to minimize demands upon reading 
speed and comprehension. Their design was also informed by 
the large amount of recent research in the area of story 
grammar and reading comprehension. This research has 
established that the structure and organization of written 
passages is more critical to a person's motivation to read the 
material and the ability to comprehend it, than the particular 
words used in the passage. Basically, well-organized prose 
materials that have a story line or plot, that deal with emotive 
laden content, that present dilemmas and predicaments, and 
that are cast with contexts that are common to the reader's 
own life experience are compelling reading and result in good 
comprehension (Anderson (20) . Bower (21) . and Mayer 
(22)). All exercises developed were designed to meet these 
criteria for the design of good prose material. 



Other information also explains why the exercises are 
easy to read. First, although the problem content is often 
complex, the exercises are written in simple and direct lan- 
guage. Experienced specialists in the design of instructional 
materials typically rewrite and simplify exercise wording 
after these are initially developed by technical personnel such 
as engineers, emergency medical personnel, and experienced 
mine rescue specialists. The rewriting of initially developed 
exercises to conform with standards of good narrative struc- 
ture, clarity and simplicity of language and directions must 
not alter, change, or detract from the technical content and 
purpose of the exercise. A team effort and a willingness to 
cooperate in exercise construction is essential. 

An analysis of the readability level of three early but 
representative exercises was carried out using the University 
of Kentucky Composite Readability Analysis program. This 
program carries out seven independent estimates of the com- 
pleted school grade level equivalent required to comprehend 



TABLE 9. - Estimated reading difficulties In grade level equivalence of 
representative exercises compared to MS HA Fatal Illustration program 

narratives 



Estimation 
formula 



Harry 
Harlan' 



Water line 
repair problem 2 



Vulcan mine 
ignition 5 



MSHA fatal illustration 
program 



Spache 


4 


4 


Dale-Chall 


10 


7 


Raygor 


7 


4 


Fry 


4 


5 


Flesch 


( 4 ) 


o 


Gunning-Fog 


( 4 ) 


( 4 ) 


SMOG 


7 


7 



4 

7 

4 

7 

( 4 ) 

O 

8 



( 5 ) 

11th grade. 

Estimate not valid. 

Professional. 

College senior. 

College. 

College. 



'First aid exercise. 

2 Self -rescue and other rescue and escape exercise. 
'Methane ignition, rescue, escape, and first aid exercise. 
4 Below formula range and cannot be calculated. 
'Above formula range, and cannot be calculated. 



: 



63 



the samples of text material analyzed. A fourth analysis was 
carried out on the narrative portion of samples from the 
(MSHA) Fatal Illustrations program. The results of these 
analyses are shown in table 9. The three representative exer- 
cises were found to have reading difficulties at the upper 
elementary and junior high school level, while the MSHA 
Fatal Illustrations narratives were found to require eleventh 
grade or higher educational levels of reading skill. It should 
be noted that all samples were corrected for the specialized 
mining jargon words that appear in both the simulation exer- 
cises and in the MSHA Fatal Illustration narratives. The 
difference in reading levels between the simulation exercises 
and the MSHA narratives are not related to the absence or 
presence of special technical words, but to the simplicity, 
directness, and clarity with which complex ideas are ex- 
pressed. 



Table 8 provides yet additional evidence that helps ex- 
plain why the exercises are easy to read. The number of words 
per exercise is small. Little reading is required to work com- 
pletely through an exercise. This is accomplished by precise 
use of simple and direct language, and by the use of appropri- 
ately placed graphics throughout the exercise as the problem 
unfolds. Furthermore, the bulk of the entire exercise compo- 
nent is not read by the miner in the annual refresher training 
class. Rather, the trainee reads only the problem booklet 
questions, the answers from which to select, and those latent 
image messages from the answers selected. The alternative 
choices to a question, as well as the invisible latent image 
feedback on the answer sheet, also are terse and to the point. 
Much effort is required during the design phase of an exercise 
to achieve this cogency. 



INDEPENDENT OBSERVATIONS OF EXERCISE ACCEPTABILITY 



Throughout the field testing, a primary problem faced by 
the project staff was to supply company management and in- 
structors with the number of exercises and answer sheets they 
desired. For research and development purposes, only about 
100 to 200 data sets were needed for each exercise. Yet 
company trainers often wanted from 500 to 2,500 copies of 
specific exercises, so that all miners in their organization 
could be trained. It is clear that the exercises are perceived as 
appropriate, worthwhile, and effective instructional tools by 
those who plan and teach annual refresher training classes. 

Frequent observation of refresher training classes by 
project staff members also independently confirm the sum- 
mary data presented in tables 2 through 5. Miners almost 
always are very attentive and interested in the problem being 
worked. During the discussion period that follows working 
the exercise, miners actively participate, often challenging 
points and choices made in the exercise itself, or those made 
by their colleagues and the instructor. Members of the class 
almost always explicitly relate and generalize the content and 
predicaments presented in the exercise problem to their own 
mines and experiences. The class frequently runs overtime 
extending into the lunch break, the end of the day, or the next 
class as miners continue to engage in lively debate and 
discussion about the problem. During breaks and lunch hour, 
miners have frequently been observed to continue their dis- 
cussion of the exercise problem. 

Another observation relates to the emotive involvement 
of miners in the exercise problem. The level of thinking and 
dialogue stimulated by the exercises is almost always sophis- 
ticated and technical. Yet, it is also passionate and emotional 
as miners and trainers debate what should or should not be 
done, under various circumstances, and why or why not. In 
short, the exercises engage the full attention of miners and 
stimulate high levels of thinking about, and discussing, ways 
to cope with and prevent mine emergencies. 5 Many studies 



have shown it is precisely these types of emotional and 
cognitive involvement with classroom presented material that 
learners see as authentic and relevant. Furthermore, while 
most classroom learning tends to be inert and not applied by 
the student to real life situations, classroom instruction that 
engages the active interest and involvement of learners makes 
what is learned accessible to the learner. When the content is 
accessible the learner tends to apply skills and knowledge 
learned in class to relevant aspects of his or her personal work 
and life (Bransford Q6_) and Halpern Q8J). 

In summary, both miners and trainers are fascinated with 
the exercises, would like to have more of these included in 
annual refresher training, become emotionally and intellectu- 
ally involved in the problems, easily generalize and relate the 
problem content to their own experiences, and believe work- 
ing the simulation exercises will help them cope more effec- 
tively with similar real-life emergencies. Company manage- 
ment and instructors would like more exercises, feeling that 
they stimulate high levels of interest, motivation, and involve- 
ment of the miners in annual refresher training classes. 

Two broad generalizations can be drawn from the obser- 
vations and data from the initial field test sites. First, the 
exercises are time efficient. An entire problem from introduc- 
tion to feedback can be completed in approximately 1 h, with 
little or no time wasted on non-goal-directed activity. Second, 
exercises are motivating to the miners who work them. At 
each site, regardless of physical conditions or competing 
concerns, the part of the program devoted to exercise admini- 
stration was characterized by concentrated effort and a high 
level of interest on the part of both trainers and trainees. There 
are three possible reasons for these observations. 



5 A more detailed account of the effects of the exercises on miner 
and instructor interactions and behavior is presented by reference 23 . 



64 



First, the technique used in presenting the problems is 
intriguing. Although latent image technology has been in 
existence for several decades, few individuals are exposed to 
it on a regular basis. Therefore, it is novel and perhaps 
physically appealing to those who are interested in how 
objects work. However, there is no doubt that the novelty 
would soon wear off if that were all the exercises offered. The 
latent image technique can be considered an attention getter, 
but it is not the reason miners are willing to spend 1 or 2 h 
working and debating a problem. The major appeal of the 
exercises derives from the conformity to good instructional 
design criteria for both the construction of narrative materials, 
and for the effective presentation of classroom learning activi- 
ties and materials. 

A second factor in the apparent success of the exercises 
is that they provide concrete things for the trainees to do. 
Unlike training films and rote instruction, the problems do not 
allow passivity on the part of the miners. In order to get the 
task completed, class members must become involved. In ad- 
dition, each person soon finds out that his or her opinion 
matters. The trainee owns the problem, in a sense, and the 
outcome depends very much on that person's judgment and 



choices. As in the workplace, the exercises allow the partici- 
pants to exchange ideas and debate courses of action; either 
before or after the fact The entire mode, therefore, evokes 
some of the same intensity of behavior that occurs in real-life 
situations where miners seek to anticipate, cope with, or 
reflect upon an emergency situation. 

The preceding point underscores a third aspect of the 
exercises being field tested. They reflect authentic situations- 
the same kinds of predicaments miners talk about in the 
workplace and in other settings where they get together. Field 
observations indicate miners continue discussing facets of the 
exercises during breaks and at slack moments in other phases 
of the training program. This indicates that just as the workers 
do not tire of speculating on the things that went wrong when 
actual accidents or disasters occur, they do not grow tired of 
working exercises such as those now being developed. An ad- 
vantage of the exercises over real situations is that each 
problem contains solutions and recommendations based on 
factual knowledge and expert authority, whereas informal 
efforts to reconstruct actual accidents after they have hap- 
pened are often based on incomplete or erroneous informa- 
tion. 



CONCLUSION 



Simulation exercises for teaching and assessing profi- 
ciency in coping with underground coal mine emergency 
situations are a novel approach for annual refresher training 
classes. Yet, similar though longer and more open ended 
simulations have been used for years for training mine rescue 
teams and mine management personnel in mine emergency 
response procedures. The present project draws upon previ- 
ous research in simulation problems in medicine, aviation, 
and the military. It includes as well the expertise in coping 
with underground mine emergencies that is found among 
experienced miners and mine rescue personnel. It also draws 
heavily from the recent research concerned with the construc- 
tion of motivating and easy to comprehend narrative materi- 



als, as well as other research about the design of instructional 
strategies that make learning interesting and what is learned 
accessible to the learner in practical contexts. The simulation 
exercises that result are intended for working miners. They 
focus on the perceptions, information, judgments, decisions, 
and actions working miners must exhibit to prevent, recog- 
nize, and control nonroutine emergency situations. The 
setting is at the working section. The options are those 
available to working miners. Initial field test results of these 
18 exercises have been encouraging. These latent image and 
other formats for simulation exercises have potential for 
increasing the relevance and quality of annual refresher train- 
ing. 



65 



REFERENCES 



1. Brecke, F. H. Instructional Design for Aircrew 
Judgment Training. Aviation, Space, and Envir. Med., v. 53, 
No. 10, 1982, pp. 951-957. 

2. Flathers, G. W., Jr., W. C. Giffin, and T. J. Rockwell. 
A Study of Decision Making Behavior of Pilots Deviating 
From a Planned Flight. Aviation, Space, and Envir. Med., v. 
53, No. 10, 1982, pp. 958-963. 

3. Giffin, W. C., and T. H. Rockwell. Computer-Aided 
Testing of Pilot Response to Critical Inflight Events. Human 
Factors, v. 26, No. 5, 1984, pp. 573-581. 

4. Jensen, R. S. Pilot Judgment: Training and Evalu- 
ation. Human Factors, v. 24, No. 1, 1982, pp. 61-73. 

5. Babbott, D., and W. D. Halter. Clinical Problem- 
Solving Skills of Internists Trained in the Problem-Oriented 
System. J. Med. Educ, v. 58, No. 12, 1983, pp. 974-953. 

6. Berner, E. S. Paradigms and Problem-Solving: A 
Literature Review. J. Med. Educ, v. 59, No. 8, 1984, pp. 625- 
633. 

7. Dugdale, A. E., D. Chandler, and G. Best. Teaching 
the Management of Medical Emergencies Using an Interac- 
tive Computer Terminal. Med. Educ, v. 16, No. 1, 1982, pp. 
27-30. 

8. Elstein, A. S., L. S. Shulman, and S. A. Sprafka. 
Medical Problem-Solving [Letter to the editor]. J. Med. 
Educ, v. 56, No. 1, 1981, pp. 75- 76. 

9. Gilbert, G. G. The Evaluation of Simulation for Skill 
Testing in the American National Red Cross First Aid and 
Personal Safety Course. Ph.D. Thesis, OH State Univ., 1975, 
264 pp.; University Microfilms No. 76- 997. 

10. Jones, G. L., and K. D. Keith. Computer Clinical 
Simulations in Health Sciences. J. Computer-Based Instr., v. 
9, No. 3, 1983, pp. 108-114. 

11. McGuire, C. H. Medical Problem-Solving: A Cri- 
tique of the Literature. Paper in Research in Medical Edu- 



cation 1984 Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Con- 
ference. Assoc. Amer. Med. Colleges, 1984, pp. 3-13. 

12. McGuire, C. H., and D. Babbott. Simulation Tech- 
nique in the Measurement of Problem-Solving Skills. J. Educ. 
Measurement, v. 4, No. 1, 1967, pp. 1-10. 

13. McGuire, C.H..L. M. Solomon, and P. G. Bashook. 
Construction and Use of Written Simulations. Psychological 
Corp. (New York), 1976, 307 pp. 

14 Rimoldi, H. H. A. The Test of Diagnostic Skills. J. 
Med. Educ, v. 36, 1961, pp. 73-79. 

15. Halff, H. M., J. D. Holan, and E. L. Hutchins. 
Cognitive Science and Military Training. Amer. Psych., v.41, 
No. 10, 1986, pp. 1131-1139. 

16. Bransford, J., R. Sherwood, N. Vye, and J. Rieser. 
Teaching Thinking and Problem Solving: Research Founda- 
tions. Am. Psychol., v. 41, No. 10, 1986, pp. 1078-1089. 

17. Cole, H. P. Process Education. Educational Tech. 
Publ., 1971, 261 pp. 

18. Halpern, D. F. Thought and Knowledge: An Intro- 
duction to Critical Thinking. Erlbaum (Hillsdale, NJ), 1984, 
402 pp. 

19. Rockefeller, J. D. IV. The American Coal Miner: A 
Report on Community and Living Conditions in the Coal 
Fields. The President's Commission on Coal, 1980,233 pp. 

20. Anderson, J. R. Cognitive Psychology and Its Impli- 
cations. Freeman, 1985, 472 pp. 

21. Bower, G.H. Experiments in Story Comprehension 
and Recall. Discourse Processes, v. 1, 1978, pp. 211-231. 

22. Mayer, R. E. Thinking, Problem Solving, Cogni- 
tion. Freeman, 1983, 426 pp. 

23. University of Kentucky. Exercises for Teaching and 
Assessing Nonroutine Mine Health and Safety Skills: Ongo- 
ing BuMines contract H0348040; for inf. contact W. J. 
Wiehagen, TPO, BuMines, Pittsburgh, PA. 



66 



APPENDIX. - PORTIONS OF A FIRST AID 
AND A MINE EMERGENCY EXERCISE 






67 



Marvin R. Letcher Exercise 

Background 

8 entries are being driven in 42 inch coal. 

Eleven miners are working on Section 001 . 

The portal is 4,000 feet outby the face. 

It is just after lunch. (Marvin ate a big meal.) 

The EMT normally on this section is absent today. 

You are trained in basic first aid but not as an EMT. 

The top in this section is generally drummy and poor. 

The roof bolter has an ATRS. 

Problem 

You are the pinner operator. You are bolting the roof in the 
#2 entry at the face. Your helper, Marvin R. Letcher, has 
gone out ahead of the bolter to mark the roof. You yell at 
him to get back. He almost gets back to supported roof 
when a piece of draw slate falls trapping both his legs. (See 
Figures 1 & 2 on page 9.) Marvin is lying face down 
screaming. The roof is dribbling across the whole entry just 
past the last row of bolts. Now, turn to page 4 and answer 
the first question. 



2 



68 




FIGURE 1 .—Draw slate falls from roof. 







FIGURE 2.— Draw slate hits Marvin's legs. 



69 



Marvin 



-h 



+ 



-f + 
Crosscut (bolted roof) 

+ H- 4- + -h 



Top 
working 




+ 



Stretcher and first-aid kit at the dinner hole 
dinner hole 240 ft away. 

Mine pager at tailpiece 200 ft away. 



FIGURE 3.— Details of Marvin's position. 



70 



Marvin R. Letcher 
Question A 

You yell for help. Three other miners come quickly. Marvin's legs are under the slate. 
His head is near the left rib. The roof bolter is outby his position about six feet. The 
ATRS is in place. (See Figure 3 on page 5.) The top continues to work. What would 
you do now? (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

1. Grab a couple of slate bars. Have the other three miners help you pry the rock off 
Marvin's legs. 

2. Get the head of the roof bolter under the corner of the rock and lift it gently off 
Marvin's legs. 

3. Move close to Marvin to check his injuries and begin first aid immediately. 

4. Leave the bolter and the ATRS where they are. Set roof jacks and timbers from the 
ATRS toward and around Marvin. 

5. Lower the ATRS on the bolter. Tram the bolter ahead and then raise the ATRS 
over Marvin. 

6. Tram the roof bolter out of the entry. Then tram a scoop in so you can lift the rock 
off Marvin with the scoop bucket. 



71 



Marvin R. Letcher 
Question B 

You have now supported the roof with two jacks and three posts. Using slate bars and 
a jack, the three of you have lifted the slate just enough to free Marvin's legs. The top 
continues to dribble across the whole entry. What should you do now? (Choose only 
ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

7. Have your buddies grab Marvin by his belt and shirt while you grab his pants leg 
above and below his left knee. Pull together and slide him out from under the rock 
sideways on his stomach. 

8. Get a board or some other object to serve as a splint. Put the board between his 
legs. Then gently tie his legs together before moving him. 

9. Reach under the slate. Grab him by his boots and jerk him out sideways by his 
feet. 

10. Leave Marvin under the rock. Give him first aid in this position until he has been 
fully immobilized and can be moved without further injury. 



6 



72 



Marvin R. Letcher 



Master Answer Sheet for Marvin R. Letcher Exercise 

Use this answer sheet to mark your selections. Rub the special pen gently and 
smoothly between the brackets. Don't scrub the pen or the message may blur. Be sure 
to color in the entire message once you have made a selection. Otherwise you may not 
get the information you need. 

Question A (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

1 . [ Risky! This may hurt you, the others, and Marvin. Try again! ] 

2. [ Good idea, but the head is too big to fit under the rock. If you try to lift the rock 
[ this way it may slide, slip, or fall and hurt Marvin more. Try again! 

3. [ This action places you and Marvin in danger. Try again! 

4. [ Correct! With the roof supported, you can now help Marvin. Do next question. 

5. [ When you start to lower the ATRS, more slate falls. This action places you and 
[ Marvin in danger. Try again! 

6. [ When you lower the ATRS and begin to tram the bolter outby, more slate falls. 
[ Now Marvin is in more trouble and you can't get to him. Try again! 

Question B (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

7. [ Correct! This procedure would be the fastest and least harmful way to move 
[ him. Do next question. 

8. [ This would endanger him and you. Try again! 

9. [ This method of moving Marvin could cause further injury. Try again! 

10. [ Risky and impossible. You can't work on him under the rock. This action also 
[ places you and him in danger. Try again! 

Question C (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again !") 

11. [His airway has to be O. K. He is screaming. There is a more important first 
[step. Try again! 

12. [ Marvin probably needs help before being transported. Try again! 

13. [ Correct! This protects everyone. Color the box under answer 14. 
[ 



21 



73 



Cecil 



Cecil Exercise 

Background 

The mine, which is above the water table, is wet and has a 52 inch seam. 

This is an 8 entry supersection, with 2 continuous miners, and 2 shuttle 
cars. 

You (Cecil) are a continuous miner operator on the West Mains Section. 

You are slim, strong, and in good shape (5' 10" and 145 lbs). 

Big Tim, your helper, is overweight and in poor physical condition (6' 2" 
and 275 lbs). 

The shuttle car roadway is littered with a large accumulation of loose 
coal and coal dust. 

Problem 

You and Big Tim have just trammed the continuous miner to the face of the 
#1 entry. Your boss comes by and tells you that one shuttle car with a 
damaged cable is stalled between #3 and #4 in the last open crosscut, and 
the other is stuck near the feeder. You and Big Tim decide to replace a few 
worn bits while waiting. While pulling the bits, you smell something burning. 
Tim tells you the smell is probably just from heat shrinking the boot over 
the splice on the shuttle car cable. After installing the bits, you go to the 
mouth of the #1 entry to establish face ventilation. Your eyes begin to burn 
and water. You look down #1 and across to #2 and see a cloud of thick, 
black smoke. The smoke is going by the mouth of #1 and out the return. 
You immediately yell to Tim and tell him about the smoke. 

After studying the map on page 8, turn the page and answer the first 
question. 



74 




« 

O 

E 
« 

o 

CO 

c 
o 

^ 
ca 
u 

o 

• 
.a 



8. 



09 
(0 

c 
u 

3 
O 
>- 

13 

3 
O 
U 

« 

o 
E 

M 



o 
c 
o 

09 

o 

a 

0) 



■o 
c 

■ti 

c -* 

!< 



o • 

>• 3 



=> • 

Ox 

LIS 

E 






75 



Cecil 



Question A 

After telling Tim about the smoke, what should you do first ? (Choose only ONE 
unless directed to "Try again!") 

1 . Take your filter self-rescuer off your belt and have it ready in case you need it. 

2. Sit down and wait for instructions from your face boss. 

3. Put on your filter self-rescuer and tell Tim to do the same. 

4. Take a deep breath and head for intake air quickly. 



9 



76 



Cecil 



Question B 

As you are putting on your filter self-rescuer (FSR), Big Tim tells you that he has left 
his FSR on the other miner, which is broken down in the #6 entry. What would you do 
now? (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

5. Finish putting on your FSR, but stop and think before taking further action. 

6. Share your FSR with Tim by taking turns breathing through it, and dash 
through the smoke. 

7. Tell Tim to stay put. Finish putting on your FSR and go across the section to get 
Tim's FSR. 

8. Leave your FSR off and wait for help with Tim. 

9. Offer your FSR to Big Tim and have him go for help. 






10 



77 



Cecil 



Master Answer Sheet for Cecil Exercise 

Use this answer sheet to mark your selections. Rub the special pen gently and 
smoothly between the brackets. Don't scrub the pen or the message may blur. Be 
sure to color in the entire message once you make a selection. Otherwise you may 
not get the information you need. 

Question A (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

1 . [ You shouldn't do this unless you plan to put it on now. Try again! ] 

2. [ He's probably down at the feeder. You need to act now. Try again! ] 

3. [ Correct! Carbon monoxide may be present. Do next question. ] 

4. [ This is very dangerous! You and Big Tim may die. Try again! ] 
Question B (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

5. [ Correct! A "snap" decision could prove fatal to both of you. You are not yet in ] 
[ smoke. Do next question. ] 

6. [ This would be difficult to do, and you would likely become separated in the ] 
[smoke. Try again! 

7. [ There is a more critical first step. Try again! ] 

8. [ Although "misery loves company," it is important that at least one of you is ] 
[ protected from carbon monoxide. Try again! 

9. [ Should it be necessary for someone to get through the smoke quickly, it should 

] 

[ be you rather than Tim. Try again! ] 

Question C (Choose only ONE unless directed to "Try again!") 

10. [ The effects of carbon monoxide do not depend on physical condition. Try ] 
[ again! ] 

1 1 . [ This will not protect him from carbon monoxide. You still don't know the ] 
[ source or extent of the smoke. Try again! 

12. [ Smoke is slowly drifting in toward the face. Tim would soon be overcome. Try ] 
[ again! ] 

22 



78 



FIRST AID ROLE PLAY SIMULATIONS FOR MINERS 



By H. P. Cole, 1 R. D. Wasielewski, 2 J. V. Haley, 3 and P. K. Berger 4 



ABSTRACT 

Simulation exercises designed to strengthen miners first aid patient evaluation, problem identi- 
fication, and first aid treatment skills were developed and evaluated over a 2-yr period. The exercises 
are based on the work of Ohio State University and University of Kentucky researchers under Bureau 
of Mines contract The design characteristics of these simulations are described in this paper. An 
example exercise is provided as an appendix to this paper. Using these materials, instructors can adapt 
the procedure and methods to develop a wide variety of other effective first aid simulation exercises. 

Field tests of the new exercises suggest that the simulations (1) are seen as authentic and realistic 
problems by miners and instructors, (2) actively engage the interest and participation of miners, and 
(3) teach important first aid diagnostic and problem identification skills, as well as standard first aid 
treatment procedures. Performance data from the exercises confirm miners lack of proficiency in first 
aid diagnostic and evaluation skills. Training with realistic simulations, like those researched and 
described in this report, may increase miner proficiency for coping with actual first aid emergency 
situations. 



INTRODUCTION 



This paper provides practical information for instructors 
who teach first aid to miners in annual refresher training 
classes. After reading the paper and examining the materials 
in the appendix, instructors who choose to do so can develop 
similar simulation exercises for other first aid problems. The 
paper also provides background information about the design 
of these types of simulation exercises and presents data about 
their effectiveness. 

The first section reviews the role of simulation exercises 
in teaching critical skills. Miner experience with simulation 
exercises, like mine rescue contests, is then discussed. Then, 
the inexpensive Ohio State University simulation method 
developed by Gilbert (1-2) 5 is described. Its potential appli- 
cation to the training of miners is noted. Results of the Uni- 
versity of Kentucky studies of miner first aid strengths and 



weaknesses are then presented. Implications of these findings 
for the improvement of first aid training of miners are dis- 
cussed. 

The next part of the paper describes the design of new first 
aid simulation exercises for miners. The exercises emphasize 
initial diagnostic evaluation of the victim's injuries through 
hands-on primary and secondary surveys, as well as the per- 
formance of standard first aid treatment procedures once the 
injuries have been identified and treatment priorities deter- 
mined. Then, the field testing procedures used to evaluate one 
exercise are described. The miner evaluations of the exercise 
are presented along with information about the miner per- 
formance. 

The last part of the paper interprets the data from the field 
tests of the new simulation exercise. Suggestions for the use 
of such exercises are provided. 



'Professor, Department of Educational and Counseling Psy- 
chology. 

2 Associate professor, Lexington Community College. 
'Professor, Department of Behavioral Science. 



4 Professor, Martin School of Public Administration. Univer- 
sity of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 

Underlined numbers in parentheses refer to items in the list of 
references at the end of this paper. 



79 



SIMULATION EXERCISES FOR TEACHING AND TESTING CRITICAL SKILLS 



Simulation tests of real life problem solving are often an 
effective way to train and assess proficiency for dealing with 
emergency situations. Simulated emergencies can be realistic 
and motivating. They can also demand a broad range of 
responses from the individual including (a) recognizing cues 
that indicate an emergency is developing or underway, (b) 
gathering additional information to diagnose the nature and 
extent of the emergency, (c) making decisions about various 
courses of action that should be taken, and (d) implementing 
and carrying out appropriate procedures to alleviate or control 
the emergency (Distlehorst (3J). For these reasons, well- 
designed simulation exercises can mimic many aspects of 
emergency situations. Consequently, a simulation exercise 
can provide opportunity for persons to learn and practice 
critical skills needed to cope with actual emergencies. 

Because of these characteristics, simulation exercises are 
widely used in training professional and technical persons for 
responding to emergency situations. Elaborate interactive 
computer-controlled human patient simulators, patient actors, 
computer-generated patient evaluation problems, and paper 
and pencil latent image patient care and management prob- 
lems (PMP's) are frequently used for training physicians, 
nurses, and dentists to diagnose and treat medical illnesses and 
emergencies (Babbott (4), Dugdale (5J, Farrand (6J, Fleisher 
(2), Jones (8), McGuire (9-101 Norman (11), Pryor Q2), 
Saunders (13) . and Umbers (14)). Similar simulation tech- 
niques are used in assessing proficiency of emergency skills 
of aircrews (Flathers (15) . Giffin (16) . Jensen (17)). power 
plant operators (Hunt (18V). and other technical personnel 
(Olsen Q9J). 

Figure 1 outlines a simulation exercise developed for the 
proficiency testing and refresher training of industrial and 
laboratory workers (Olsen (19)). The simulations are carried 
out as staged accidents in actual work locations. Human 
actors and simple props are used to stage a more or less 
realistic accident scene. (In one training program described 
by Olsen (19) . animal blood and entrails obtained from 
slaughterhouses are used as props to simulate major injury 
accidents to workers.) 



The simulation begins when workers discover the simu- 
lated accident and begin first aid care for the victim. The 
discovery may be with or without prior knowledge of the 
trainees as part of a planned training activity. Although they 
may provide a realistic context for teaching and assessing 
proficiency in critical first aid skills, such full-scale work 
location simulation exercises are difficult and costly to ar- 
range. Yet these and other types of simulation exercises 
provide experience with situations workers and first-aiders 
rarely encounter otherwise. A main purpose of such simula- 
tions is to maintain proficiency in nonroutine, infrequently 
used, but critical skills. 

Other types of simulation exercises can often be even 
more expensive, especially when they involve complex inter- 
active computers in combination with mechanical mockups of 
human patients, aircraft cockpits, or other equipment. How- 
ever, simpler paper and pencil simulations are often used for 
teaching and assessing proficiency in critical skills, especially 
those involving problem recognition, information gathering, 
and decisionmaking (Giffin (16J). 

Paper and pencil simulations of this type have recently 
been developed for teaching coal miners how to cope with 
underground mine emergency situations (Cole (20-21) and 
Lacefield (22)). Knowledge gained from constructing and 
field testing these types of simulations can contribute directly 
to the design of effective role play simulation exercises. As 
McGuire (23) notes in a review of medical simulation re- 
search, it is not the format of problem presentation but the 
content and logic of the simulated problem that is basic to an 
effective exercise for testing proficiency in such skills. Simu- 
lations may take many formats including computer admini- 
stration, paper and pencil exercises, gaming situations, full- 
scale drills and contests in the workplace, or structured class- 
room role playing activities. This paper deals with the latter 
type of simulations. However, the principles noted often 
apply to other types of simulation problems, including the 
latent image paper and pencil format exercises developed in 
this project and described in other reports (Cole (24)). 



MINER EXPERIENCE WITH ROLE PLAY SIMULATIONS 



If designed appropriately, role play simulations are mo- 
tivating and effective means for teaching and assessing prob- 
lem solving skills needed to cope with emergency situations. 
If they are not carefully designed, classroom role play simu- 
lation exercises fail to achieve their potential. Both well 
designed and poorly designed role play simulations have been 
experienced by most miners and trainers. The simulations 
experienced by most miners fall into three general categories: 
Mine rescue contest exercises, first aid contest exercises, and 
impromptu and less complete classroom role playing situ- 



ations that are usually carried out in the context of teaching 
interpersonal dynamics. This generalization is based upon 
visiting and observing many of these types of training activi- 
ties in the mining industry in 6 States over a 4-yr period. 

Mine rescue training exercises are widely used in the 
mining industry. These are elaborate and detailed problem 
solving exercises that involve the use of actual mine rescue 
equipment and many props to simulate an underground mine 
environment Sometimes the exercise is carried out under- 
ground in an actual mine. During the exercise some persons 



80 



SCENARIO 
EMERGENCY RESPONSE TRAINING 

DATE TIME 



NATURE OF EMERGENCY: Acid battery explosion 



TRAINING TO BE UTILIZED/TESTED: First aid in acid environment 
LOCATION OF EXERCISE: Emergency generator building 



NOTIFICATIONS OR SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: Fire Department. Request that the 
fire department take information from the plant emergency response team and advise 

that no ambulance is available for transport of injured. 

DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT: A maintenance man is checking the bearings on the 
emergency generator. Batteries are being charged. Upon completion of his job, he 
lights a cigarette. The flame ignites hydrogen which is trapped in the area because of 

a ventilation problem. 

The battery explodes. 

The man is hit by flying debris. 



His head is cut. 



His hand is burned by the exploding hydrogen gas. 



He is covered with acid. 



PROCEED AS IF THIS SITUATION WERE AN ACTUAL EMERGENCY. 

FIGURE 1.— Example of realistic simulation exercise (Olsen (79) ). 



81 



play the role of injured or trapped miners while others adopt 
the multiple roles of the mine rescue team and its support staff. 
The exercise is structured around a complex and realistic 
problem, such as a mine fire or explosion. The simulated 
victims and the mine rescue team do not know all of the 
problem structure as the exercise begins. Rather, they know 
only the information that would typically be available to them 
in a similar actual mine emergency. Thus, as in real life, 
details of the problem become known to the role players only 
as they develop a plan, enter the simulated mine and attempt 
to locate and rescue the missing miners. 

The problem unfolds and changes as the rescue team 
explores the mine, gathers information, encounters barriers 
and hazards, and modifies strategy to achieve the goals of 
locating and evacuating trapped and/or injured miners and 
restoring the mine to a safe condition. Although there are 
well-established procedures and protocols for mine rescue 
work, every mine exercise is a different problem. A good 
solution (rescue) requires a flexible and unique combination 
of prior knowledge and skills. The development and execu- 
tion of constantly changing plans and strategies is required. 
Standard protocols must be recalled and applied when appro- 
priate. As the rescue proceeds, inferences must be constructed 
about mine conditions based on available information. A 
good solution creatively integrates the large amount of infor- 
mation and the many procedures basic to any problem . Miners 
and trainers enjoy these elaborate simulations and learn much 
from them. 

First aid exercises and contests are also widely used in the 
mining industry, often in conjunction with mine rescue con- 
tests. These exercises also involve miners who role play 
injured accident victims and others who adopt the roles of a 
first aid team. The simulated injuries are usually severe. First 
aid kits and supplies normally available in mines are available 
to the first aid team. However, unlike mine rescue exercises 
that require problem solving activity, most mine first aid 
exercises and contests place less emphasis upon initial prob- 
lem identification and formulation. The nature and extent of 
the victim's injuries are usually given to the first-aiders, often 
printed on a piece of paper. The exercise usually focuses upon 
the skill of the first aid team in applying standard procedures 
to stop bleeding, dress and bandage wounds, splint and ban- 
dage fractures, and immobilize the victim on a stretcher. 
These types of exercises present the first-aiders with an 
already well-defined problem. The emphasis (and scoring) is 
upon the rapid and skillful application of first aid procedures 
according to standard protocols. The early and crucial infor- 
mation gathering, problem formulation, and strategy develop- 
ment aspects of the problem are ignored. These include (1) 
the first-aider's initial evaluation of the accident scene to 
determine if it is safe to treat the victim, or if some other 
action(s) must be taken first; (2) the approach to and removal 
of the victim, once the mine area in which the victim is located 
is judged safe for the first-aiders to enter; (3) the evaluation of 
the victim's injuries through a detailed primary and secondary 



survey; (4) the use of information from the primary and 
secondary surveys to construct inferences about what injuries 
are present, which should be treated, in what order, and by 
what methods; (5) the planning and implementation of com- 
plex details of communicating with surface personnel and 
transporting the victim to the portal. 

The third type of role play simulations with which many 
trainers and miners are familiar are designed for inclusion in 
annual refresher training and similar classroom settings. 
Constraints of time and location generally require these simu- 
lation exercises to be brief, perhaps no longer than 20 min, and 
to not require elaborate props or equipment. Often the content 
of these role play simulations concerns interpersonal dynam- 
ics among miners and their supervisors. Sometimes the 
content is technical, such as the role playing of a mine 
inspector and a mine supervisor conversation about a list of 
violations found by the inspector in a current visit to the mine. 
If carefully planned, developed, and introduced at the appro- 
priate time and in an appropriate manner, these types of 
shorter simulations can also be engaging and elicit the full 
participation of miners. However, even short classroom 
simulation exercises are more difficult to design and structure 
than they may at first appear. 

It has been observed that many mine trainers have tried to 
use role play simulations like these in their classes, but with 
poor results. Often there is too little planning and preparation 
on the part of the instructor. Skillful and experienced instruc- 
tors who can use impromptu role play situations effectively 
tend to be few and far between. Frequently the method fails 
to achieve its potential because the trainer fails to select and 
structure an authentic problem that challenges participants 
present levels of knowledge and skill. Oftentimes the problem 
structure is not clear to the trainer or to the miners. The content 
and logic of the problem is often not well articulated. The 
roles of the players are often not specified clearly, and class 
members feel uncertain and uneasy about what they are to do. 
Sometimes, little thought is given to what the members of the 
class who are not involved in the role play situation are to do 
during the activity. Usually there are no objective criteria for 
evaluation of the role play performance. Following the 
activity, it is easy for the persons who observed to be critical 
of the actors. Thus, the role players may feel uneasy and de- 
fensive. One or two experiences with role play simulations 
like these serve to disenchant both miners and trainers. In the 
future, both will tend to avoid similar classroom simulation 
exercises or activities that they perceive as similar to these 
simulations. 

Much preparation prior to the simulation is necessary if 
the instructor is to present the simulated problem in a realistic 
and time efficient manner, and if trainees are to become fully 
and quickly engaged in the activity. Effective role play 
simulation exercises incorporate a number of components. 
These include (1) simple props that simulate key aspects of the 
problem setting, (2) carefully chosen graphics and illustra- 
tions that help describe the problem, (3) a brief written 



82 



description that clearly presents the initial problem, (4) brief 
and clear instructions to the individual class members who 
play various roles in the simulation (and to those who observe 
the role play simulation), and (5) a means to evaluate specific 
aspects of the problem solving performance of the partici- 
pants. Role play simulations that are usually designed and 
used by classroom instructors tend to be more impromptu and 
less complete with respect to these design criteria. 



First aid classroom role play simulations that meet good 
design criteria and that are known to be motivating and 
effective instructional tools have been developed and re- 
searched with college student populations at the Ohio State 
University (Gilbert (D). This earlier research was used to 
design the first aid simulation exercises discussed in this 
paper. 



GILBERT FIRST AID SIMULATION TECHNIQUE 



In his dissertation, Gilbert Q) set out to develop an inex- 
pensive, easy to use, and effective simulation method for 
teaching basic first aid skills. His review of the earlier 
research categorized simulation exercises into eight different 
approaches. Many of these approaches, such as computerized 
mechanical models of injured human victims, full-scale field 
simulations of accidents with injury makeup kits and human 
actors (as often used in the military), and complex flight or 
other equipment simulators are not available to instructors in 
typical first aid courses. Other methods, such as those de- 
scribed by Olsen (19) using human actors with animal blood 
and entrails to simulate industrial accidents at actual work 
stations, are difficult to stage, very time consuming, and 
fraught with potential ethical and legal problems. 

Using ideas and techniques from simulation methods and 
research across the eight approaches, Gilbert developed an 
inexpensive, simple, but effective simulation approach. The 
procedure provides short verbal descriptions of the problem 
situation, brief written instructions for human actors (victims 
and bystanders) in brief role playing situations, injury tags 
placed on the victim, and a performance scoring sheet The 
simulation is presented to the trainee as if he or she had 
suddenly encountered an accident victim. 

The trainee must first gather information from the victim 
and bystanders, by observation and questioning. Information 
about the nature and extent of injury to the victim is partially 
revealed by the trainee's primary and secondary surveys of the 
victim. Bleeding, puncture wounds, dislocations, fractures, 
and other injuries are not fully simulated with makeup kits. 
However, they are simulated by the victim actor and by injury 
tags placed on the victim's body at appropriate places; e.g., a 
small label stuck to the patient's ear that says "small amount 
of clear, slightly yellow fluid running out of ear," a small label 
on the upper left chest that says "puncture wound (about the 
size of a pencil) making a sucking noise," or a large red card 
on a limb or the floor that says, "large pool of dark red blood 
and blood-soaked clothing." 6 



The size, location, and prominence of the injury tag is 
related to the size, location, and prominence of actual injury 
cues on real victims with the types of injuries being simulated. 

To perform effectively, the trainee must find and make 
use of all the cues (position of victim, bystanders observa- 
tions, injury card cues located on the victim, etc.). He or she 
must then decide upon a course of action and administer first 
aid. For each simulation exercise there is a performance check 
list that is used by the instructor to score the proficiency of the 
trainee. An example of a Gilbert simulation exercise and a 
performance scoring sheet is given in figures 2 and 3, respec- 
tively. 

Gilbert tested his simulation method in a large experi- 
mental study with college students. He found the method to 
be highly motivating to students, inexpensive, and effective in 
teaching basic first aid skills as outlined in the "First Aid and 
Personal Safety Course of the American Red Cross" (25) . He 
also found his method was effective in measuring student 
knowledge of first aid skills as validated by the "Ohio State 
University First Aid and Personal Safety Achievement Test" 
(Gilbert (1)). The Ohio State test is a standardized 100 item 
multiple choice test. More recently Gilbert (2) has further 
refined and validated his simulation method with other 
samples of persons and with the "Burkes Emergency Care 
Knowledge Test" (Burkes (26)). 

From his research, Gilbert concluded that persons trained 
in the method were able to learn to perform procedures 
correctly and that they achieved mastery of verbal knowledge 
about first aid procedures. However, his study did not deter- 
mine how long trainees retained this proficiency and knowl- 
edge, or how well this procedural proficiency in first aid 
generalized to actual first aid practice. 






6 These injury labels are similar to the labels used in surface 
simulations of mine rescue contests where printed material on cards 
placed on the ground or simulated rib disclose information to the 
team as it advances (water, methane level, roof fall, etc.). 



83 



Situation #7B: Industrial Accident 

Situation: 

You are working on a construction project when there is a cave-in and material 
strikes a co-worker. 

Where: 

Ground level of a new building project 
Miscellaneous Information: 

You fear the building will continue to cave in. 

Position of Victim: 

On back 
Special Instructions for Victim: 

You are Unconscious and remain so. 
Supplied Materials: 

1 . Assorted bandaging materials 

2. Coat 



Tags: 



1 . Moderate bleeding (1 )-f ront of scalp 

2. Mild bleeding (1)-nose 

3. Mild bleeding (1)-back of neck 

4. Moderate bleeding (l)-front of left lower leg 

FIGURE 2.— Example of Gilbert simulation exercise. 



84 



Name of First Aider 



Grader 
Situation #7B: Industrial Accident 



Yes 
Well Done 



Yes 

Adequate 



No 



1 . Was the victim removed from the dangerous 

area in proper fashion? 3 , 2 

2 . Was the victim properly examined for all 

injuries? 2 

3. Was moderate bleeding of leg controlled and 
bandaged properly? 4,3 

A. Direct pressure and elevation (1) 

B. Pressure point (1) 

C. Proper bandage and dressing (2) 

4. Was moderate bleeding of scalp controlled by a 
loose bandage and dressed so as not to stop flow 
completely? 4,3 

5. Was concussion suspected and victim thus 

handled very carefully? 2 

6. Was mild bleeding of neck controlled and 

bandaged properly? 3,2 

A. Direct pressure (1) 

B. Proper bandage and dressing-non-circular (2) 

7. Was mild bleeding of nose controlled in an 
appropriate fashion? 2 

8. Was victim treated for shock? (In this case 
elevation of feet is inappropriate and elevation of 

upper body is acceptable.) 2 



2,1 



2,1 



Comments: 



Add 



Deductions. 
Total 



Fbssfcte 



_22_ 



FIGURE 3.— Example of Gilbert simulation exercise performance scoring sheet. 



85 



POTENTIAL OF GILBERT SIMULATION METHOD FOR MINER TRAINING 



Prior to the work of this project, it appeared that the 
Gilbert method for teaching and assessing proficiency in first 
aid skills had not been applied to miner training. However, for 
a number of reasons, the method was judged to have promise 
for teaching first aid skills to miners in annual refresher 
classes. 

First, it is relatively easy to develop and use simulation 
exercises patterned after the Gilbert method. Neither the 
development of the exercises nor their use requires any special 
equipment beyond that typically available to annual refresher 
class instructors. 

Second, the method is adaptable. Where miners might be 
inhibited about doing a full body survey in a suspected spinal 
injury victim (including checking for penile erection and toe 
flexure), a manikin rather than a human actor might be 
substituted. 

Third, the method is brief and time efficient. A single 
simulation can be completed, evaluated, and critiqued in a 20- 
or 30-min period. Multiple role play simulations of the same 
or different problems may be undertaken with small groups of 
trainees in the same classroom, thus involving all participants 
in hands-on skill building activities. 



Fourth, the Gilbert method has proven to engage the full 
attention and participation of college students and others in 
learning first aid skills, and it has also been shown to increase 
their first aid knowledge and skills. 

Fifth, many of the simulation exercises developed by 
Gilbert and his colleagues may be easily adapted to first aid 
problems that are common in underground mines. 

Sixth, the method can be used to present realistic prob- 
lems that mimic well the full range of problem solving activity 
required in actual mine first aid emergencies, much more so 
than first aid team contest exercises, or refresher class first aid 
instruction that presents a well-defined first aid injury case 
and focuses mainly on performance of first aid procedures. 

Seventh, field interviews revealed that miner first aid 
skills and knowledge were weakest in critical information 
gathering, judgment, and decisionmaking. These specific 
skill areas are emphasized by the Gilbert simulation method. 

For these reasons the Gilbert simulation method was 
studied and adapted to the production of classroom simulation 
exercises for use in annual refresher training. 



MINER FIRST AID STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES 



A study of miner performance of first aid skills as 
practiced on injured fellow miners was undertaken (Cole, 
(21)). Medical personnel and miners trained as emergency 
medical technicians (EMTs) were sampled from four coal- 
producing regions in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. 
The sample included those first aid experts who first see and 
treat injured miners who have earlier received first aid from 
their fellow miners. The observations of these experts were 
gathered from interviews. Interviewers used critical incident 
and structured interview forms designed to elicit from these 
experts their direct observations of what first aid tasks miners 
usually perform well and what tasks they often perform 
poorly. One hundred twenty first aid experts were inter- 
viewed, some in group settings. Reports from 77 experts who 



made individual responses were collected and tallied. Table 1 
describes the geographic distribution and the types of experts 
involved in this sample. In the interviews it was made clear 
that the expert' s frame of reference should be the strengths and 
weaknesses of miner actual first aid performance. The quality 
of performance was to be judged by the expert's examinations 
of the victims, following initial first aid treatment by non- 
EMT trained miners. 

The working EMT's shown in table 1 included five 
underground coal miners who routinely are called to the scene 
of underground first aid emergencies, and seven EMT ambu- 
lance personnel who routinely meet injured miners at the 
portal. The 33 EMT miner trainees are all experienced 
miners, many of them supervisors, who had nearly completed 



TABLE 1. - Types of first aid experts interviewed and their geographic distribution 



Expert type 


Eastern KY 


Western KY 


Central WV 


Southwest VA 


Total 


Emergency MD 


1 





2 


4 


7 


Emergency room RN 


2 


3 


3 


5 


13 


EMT instructors 


6 


1 





1 


8 


Working EMT's 





13 


1 





14 


EMT miner trainees 


16 


17 








33 


Other 


2 











2 


Totals 


27 


34 


6 


10 


77 



86 



16 weeks of EMT training but who had not yet passed the 
certification examination. 

The experts interviewed reported miners were strongest 
in following standard procedures for treating obvious inju- 
ries, especially splinting and bandaging simple fractures, 
caring for cuts, abrasions, and sprains, and controlling bleed- 
ing. Miners were reported as most often making serious errors 
when (1) immobilizing and transporting victims with back 
and neck (spinal) injuries, (2) dressing and immobilizing 
compound fractures, (3) rushing to move an injured miner 
without first immobilizing and stabilizing the victim, and (4) 
failing to do a victim evaluation through a primary and 
secondary survey. 

Poor performance on these tasks was reported to be 
caused primarily by failure to discover hidden or nonobvious 
injuries. Missing hidden injuries was said to result from miner 
failure to conduct an adequate initial hands-on patient evalu- 
ation. Thus, the victim's injuries, unless obvious, tend to 
remain unidentified. Properly evaluating the victim for inju- 
ries tends to improve first aid care because hidden injuries 
may be found and treatment priorities established. 

Analysis of the data suggested there is a consensus among 
the experts on both first aid treatments performed well and 
those performed poorly. Obvious injuries are generally 
treated well, hidden injuries and illnesses are not, with a major 
exception that obvious compound fractures are often not 
treated well because the treatment procedures are difficult 

Sometimes obvious and hidden injuries are combined in 
the same victim. Table 2 reports the experts' estimated 
percent of injuries miners treat well or poorly when the 
injuries are obvious, hidden, or combined. Table 3 shows 
there is a strong positive correlation between those first aid 
treatments miners do well-poorly and the obvious-hidden 
nature of the injury. The observed correlation between these 
two dimensions is 0.53 . When the obvious but difficult to treat 
injuries (compound fractures and amputations) are omitted 
from the obvious-done poorly cell, the relationship is stronger 
and the correlation increases to 0.64. 



What differentiates miner treatment of obvious and hid- 
den injuries? It appears that treatment of obvious injuries 
requires knowledge of technique and appropriate use of first 
aid equipment, the skills that are emphasized in annual re- 
fresher first aid training and first aid contests. Appropriate 
treatment of hidden injuries or illnesses appears to require 
more emphasis upon gathering information, evaluating the 
accident scene and victim, constructing inferences about what 
the probable injuries are, and prioritizing first aid treatment 
and procedures. 

TABLE 2. - Obvious, hidden, combined, and 
other injuries treated well-poorly 



First aid 



Obvious 



Hidden Combined Other 



Cases reported 117 41 43 9 

Treated well pet 68 7 26 (') 

Treated poorly., pet 32 93 74 (') 

1 These frequencies were too small to compute meaningful 
percentages. 

Interviews with the 120 experts also yielded other infor- 
mation, including a consensus that miners often failed to 
communicate clearly and effectively with each other and with 
surface personnel when they are involved in a first aid emer- 
gency. Lack of clarity in communication, or failure to com- 
municate the details of an injury accident can have severe 
consequences for a victim. Examples cited include (1) a 
mantrip bringing out an injured miner being forced to wait for 
the track to be cleared of other equipment, when an appropri- 
ate call earlier could have cleared the track all the way out, 
(2) an injured miner who had been brought 4 miles to an 
elevator and had to be transported back in the same direction 
from which he had started, plus an additional 4 miles, to 
another elevator because the first elevator was temporarily in- 
operative while being repaired, and (3) getting an injured 



TABLE 3. - Relationship between first aid done well-poorly and obvious-hidden injuries 
(Reported frequencies of well-poorly done first aid) 



Done well 



Done poorly 



Total 



Including compound fractures and amputations: 1 

Obvious 79 

Hidden ..3 

Total 82 

Excluding compound fractures and amputations: 2 

Obvious 79 

Hidden ...3 

Total 82 



38 
38 



76 



23 
38 



61 



117 

41 



158 



102 
41 



143 



1 Chi square = 44.09, 1 degree of freedom; P = <0.001; phi coefficient = 0.53. 

2 Chi square = 58.81, 1 degree of freedom; P = <0.001; phi coefficient = 0.64. 






87 



miner to the surface promptly and into the company ambu- 
lance but not being able to leave the mine property for the 
hospital because the very long surface unit train was blocking 
the single roadway to the mine. 

After the field interviews of the 1 20 first aid experts from 
the underground coal mine industry were completed, a meet- 
ing at the National Mine Health and Safety Academy was 
convened with 13 additional experts familiar with medical 
emergencies in underground coal mines in six States. These 
experts, who routinely teach first aid as well as provide first 
aid and emergency medical treatment to miners, were also 
asked to identify the most common and most serious errors 
made by miners in first aid treatment of fellow accident 
victims. The group members identified most serious and 
frequent errors as failure to do a careful injury assessment, 
failure to prepare and stabilize the victim prior to transport to 
the surface, and failure to monitor the victim during the 
transport period. 

Miners were said to often act too quickly, moving the 
victim out without first searching for and identifying the 
extent and nature of injuries. More extensive injuries and 
complications frequently result for the victim because first- 
aiders fail to conduct critical injury evaluation, fail to find and 
care for serious injuries, and hurry transport. These 13 experts 



reviewed the findings from the field interviews and independ- 
ently judged them to be valid. The results of the field inter- 
views of first aid experts, and the independent observations of 
the 13 experts, are also consistent with an earlier set of 
findings and recommendations from a study concerned with 
the first aid needs and skills of miners (Pickar (22)). 

In summary, good first aid in underground mine emer- 
gencies requires a broad problem solving focus, not only 
knowledge of specific first aid procedures. Good first aid 
simulations should be structured much like good mine rescue 
contest problems. They should present a simulation that 
mimics the complexity of problem identification, information 
gathering, decisionmaking, communication, strategy devel- 
opment, rapidly changing conditions and unknowns, and the 
application of specific first aid techniques required to admini- 
ster effective first aid in actual mine emergencies. These 
research results from studies of miner needs for first aid 
training, and the practical knowledge gained from studies by 
Gilbert and his colleagues, contributed to the development of 
short and time efficient first aid simulations for use in annual 
refresher training classes. A sample exercise that resulted 
from this integration of research and practice is included as an 
appendix to this paper. It can serve as a model for others who 
are interested in developing additional first aid simulation 
exercises for miners. 



NEW FIRST AID SIMULATIONS FOR MINER TRAINING 



Many of the approximately 50 simulation exercises in the 
Gilbert (2) manual are relevant to underground coal mine first 
aid situations and can be used with little modification. (All of 
Gilbert's simulations are available for duplication without 
copyright restrictions.) Other Gilbert type simulations of coal 
mine medical emergencies can easily be developed from real 
past accident situations. The example simulation exercise and 
scoring sheet in figures 4 and 5 illustrate this. The graphic 
depiction of the accident situation (fig. 6) is taken from the 
MSHA "Coal - Underground Fatalities" (28J. The problem 
situation, injury tags, and scoring sheet are designed for this 
case. Although the miner in the accident case was fatally 
injured, for purposes of the exercise, the miner's injuries are 
severe, but not necessarily fatal if he is given prompt and 
proper first aid care. Many other problem situations can be 
taken from the MSHA "Fatal Injury Abstracts and Illustra- 
tions" program, as well as from MSHA and State accident 
investigation reports. Consequently it is a relatively easy task 
to make up an array of Gilbert type simulations based on real 
case materials. 

The first aid simulation exercise (fig. 4), and two others 
involving other mine injury first aid situations were distrib- 
uted to a group of instructors who routinely teach annual 
refresher training classes. While these persons found the 
content of the exercises to be of interest, they were unsure 
about how effective the exercises might be in their classes and 



also unsure how to go about presenting the material. Some 
thought miners in their classes might be unwilling to partici- 
pate in such an activity. Others thought the simulation would 
require too much preparation, or would be too difficult to carry 
out. Subsequent to these meetings, the Gilbert method was 
modified to make the exercise purpose more explicit, to make 
it easier for trainers and miners to use the simulations, and to 
produce a realistic simulation similar in many ways to the 
traditional mine rescue exercise simulations popular with 
miners and trainers. 

Examination of the sample exercise in the appendix to 
this paper illustrates all the basic features of the Gilbert 
method have been retained, while additional design features 
have been added that make the simulation easier for miners 
and instructors to use. 

The following is a list of the design guidelines for these 
newer role play simulations. 

1. The problem should challenge participants present 
levels of first aid knowledge and skill. There should be an 
opportunity for the trainees to identify and solve problems, not 
only the opportunity to demonstrate first aid procedures such 
as giving artificial respiration or bandaging a wound. 

2. The problem context should be authentic with respect 
to the trainees workplace experiences. The problem, the 
language used to describe it, the roles and relationships of the 
victim and role players, the graphic illustrations and the props 



Situation #1 : Roof Fall Injury 



Situation: 

A miner is hit by 12 inch thick, 4x5 foot kettle bottom while shoveling coal 
Where: 

48 inch coal near a continuous miner 

Miscellaneous Information: 

There are two other members in the crew and you are the most experienced. 
Nearest phone 5 minutes away. It is twenty minutes to portal by mantrip. 

Position of Victim: 

Lying on side under part of broken kettle bottom 
Special Instructions for Victim: 

You can talk but are dazed and cannot move your arms and legs. 
Special Instructions for Crew Members: 

Act excited but do what you are told. 
Supplied Materials: 

Mine first aid kit and stretcher (5 minutes away). 
Tags: 

1 . Part of kettle bottom on top of miner (Simulate with cardboard box or other 
similar object) 

2. Left upper chest pulls in when miner breathes in. (Apply label to left chest under 
shirt) 

3. Bones of upper spine are out of line. (Apply label to upper spine under shirt) 

FIGURE 4.— Sample Gilbert-type exercise simulation modeled after a coal mine accident. 



89 



Name 



Grader 
Situation #1 : Roof Fall Injury 

Yes 
Well Done 



Yes 
Adequate 



No 



1 . Was the kettle bottom promptly, gently, 
and properly removed from the victim? 

2. Was the victim properly examined and 
questioned for all injuries? 

3. Was the victim not moved unnecessarily? 

4. Was the victim given verbal encouragement? 

5. Was crushed chest properly diagnosed and 
splinted? 

6. Was possible spinal injury properly diagnosed 
and victim handled correctly? 

7. Was victim treated for shock? 

8. Was help sent for? 

9. Was victim properly immobilized and moved 
properly? 



3 


2 





2 


1 





1 


1 






Add 



Deduclions. 
Total 



FbssUe 



21 



FIGURE 5.— Sample Gilbert type exercise simulation performance scoring sheet for roof fall accident situation. 



90 




^M£> 



FIGURE 6.— Depiction of roof fall accident situation {28). 



91 



used to help present the problem, the types of injuries simu- 
lated, as well as their cause, must all be seen as authentic and 
realistic by the trainees with respect to their workplace expe- 
riences. 

3. The initial problem situation, descriptions of addi- 
tional background information, and instructions to the role 
players, should all be brief and articulate statements written in 
simple language. Drawings, diagrams, graphics, and simple 
props should be used along with verbal descriptions to present 
the main aspects of the problem and its context. 

4. The initial problem situation needs to be described 
adequately. Relevant background information that would be 
known to the persons in an actual problem situation should be 
briefly presented. However, only that information that would 
be immediately available to the first-aiders from the emer- 
gency scene itself, from the victim or witnesses, should be 
available in the initial problem narrative statement. Other- 
wise, the simulation does not provide the opportunity for the 
trainee to identify the problem(s), establish treatment priori- 
ties, and select and apply relevant first aid procedures. 

5. The simulation exercise should be designed to reveal 
additional information to the problem solvers role playing the 
first-aiders as the simulation unfolds. The instructions to the 
victim, the placement of injury and accident scene cues, and 
all other aspects of the problem should be designed to release 
additional relevant information to the problem solvers as 
appropriate inquiries are made as the problem is worked. 

6. Simple props that simulate the key elements of the 
accident scene, the injuries to the victim, the materials and 
resources at hand, and any special conditions in the specific 
accident situation need to be developed and presented 
throughout the exercise as the problem unfolds. These props 
can include simple drawings and diagrams of the accident 
scene including the location and appearance of equipment and 
the victim, depictions of obvious and hidden injuries through 
the appropriate placement of injury tags and simulated inju- 
ries, special instructions to the victim about how he or she 
should act or speak, as well as collections of equipment and 
materials that would usually be available at or near to the 
accident scene, e.g., other persons, telephones, first aid kits, 
jackets, tools, etc. 

7. The brief printed instructions to those class members 
who are to role play the victim (s), witnesses, and/or the first- 
aiders need to be prepared on separate cards and presented to 
the role players when the simulation is introduced. Similar 
sets of brief instructions need to be prepared and given to 
trainees who are not involved as actors but will observe the 
simulation. Prior to the simulation, each group of trainees, 
victim, first-aiders, and observers need their own set of 
instructions to define their role in the activity. 

8. A performance evaluation sheet by which to rate the 
effectiveness of the first aid treatment administered to the 
victim by the first-aiders should be prepared. All the key steps 
in proper first aid treatment for the case in the simulation 



should be listed and followed by a short and easy to use rating 
scale. Following the simulation, all the members of the class 
including the instructor, the victim, the first-aiders, and the 
observers should rate the first aid performance on the rating 
scale. Discussion of the ratings awarded by the instructor and 
the class members should be used as aids for correcting errors, 
reinforcing correct performance, and illustrating first aid 
concepts, procedures, and techniques. 

In addition to the materials to be used with the miners in 
the classroom, a carefully designed instructor's guide should 
be prepared for the trainer. The following is a list of design 
guidelines for the instructor's guide: 

1. The instructor's guide should present the problem 
situation in a brief narrative and graphic form that will also be 
used to help present the problem situation to the miners. This 
helps the instructor to grasp quickly the content and context of 
the problem. (See pages 3-5 of appendix.) 

2. The instructor's guide should describe in a clear and 
logical manner what the instructor must do before the simula- 
tion to prepare for class, what he or she must do during the 
simulation to ensure an effective session, and what must be 
done after the simulation to help class members profit from the 
exercise. This type of detail in the instructor's guide makes it 
easy for the instructor to prepare for class. Uncertainty about 
how to proceed is avoided. Detailed prior preparation and 
planning is assisted by such directions. (See pages 6-10 of 
appendix.) 

3. The instructor's guide should be designed so that 
everything the instructor needs to prepare for and carry out the 
simulation is provided. This includes the narrative descrip- 
tion and graphics used to present the problem situation to the 
miners (prepared in large type suitable for copying to readily 
visible overhead transparencies); injury tags, instructions to 
the victim, first-aiders, and observers all printed neatly on 
cutout cards that may be quickly clipped out and used as is; the 
performance rating form; additional diagrams, charts, and 
pictures to be used following the simulation; suggestions 
about how to adapt, modify, and enhance the exercise; etc. 
Those props and materials that cannot be included in the 
instructor' s guide should be commonly and easily available in 
typical annual refresher training classes. These things include 
first aid kits, blankets, jackets, tools, and objects like desks 
and tables used to simulate equipment like roof bolters, 
continuous mining machines, and such things as rolled up 
newspapers taped with masking tape to simulate an amputated 
arm. 

4. The instructor's guide and the simulation activity 
itself should both be designed such that once the instructor 
prepares for one class, he or she can save the props and 
materials and use them again to teach other classes for the 
same simulation, with minimum new preparation time. 

5. The instructor's guide and the simulation activity 
itself should be designed to help instructors generalize these 
instructional design principles to the planning, development, 



92 



and use of other effective simulation exercises generated by 
instructors themselves. 

There are two primary instructional design differences 
between the Gilbert simulations and these newer first aid 
simulations. First, with the new method the presentation of 
the problem scenario is more detailed and complete, but still 
short and time efficient. In the Gilbert method, the problem 
presentation is accomplished through brief verbal statements 
and descriptions along with the physical role playing presen- 
tation of the accident scene complete with the role playing 
victim and injury tags. (See figure 1.) In the new method the 
problem situation is presented in more detail. A one-page, 
large-type description of the problem and its background 
features is presented on an overhead transparency. (See page 
3 of appendix.) In addition, detailed drawings and graphics 
are presented on overhead projector transparencies. (See 
pages 4-5 of appendix.) These diagrams and drawings quickly 
convey details of the accident scene that would normally be 
available in an actual emergency, but that are difficult to 
describe in verbal statements. It is also easy for the instructor 
to set up the simulated accident scene with reference to the 
written and graphic depiction of the problem. This simulta- 
neous multiple presentation of the problem through verbal, 
graphic, and physical simulation of the accident scene and 
injuries helps make the exercise more realistic and meaning- 
ful to the miners who enter the classroom in the role of first- 
aiders or observers. 

A second instructional design difference between the 
Gilbert simulations and the newer method concerns the degree 
to which the instructor is provided details and assistance in 
preparing for and carrying out the classroom simulation 
activity. In typical Gilbert simulation exercises the instructor 
is provided with little specific information about how to 
prepare for the simulation, conduct the activity, or engage in 
fruitful followup discussion. (See figure 1.) The new method 
makes these matters explicit. Consequently, instructors who 
are not skilled in using classroom role play simulations as an 
instructional method may be expected to do a better job of 
preparing for and conducting their class. Examination of the 
instructor's guide for the sample simulation exercise included 
in the appendix illustrates the explicit nature of the assistance 
to the instructor in planning and conducting the exercise. 

First, the guide presents the problem situation to the 
instructor in verbal and graphic form. (See pages 3-5 of 
appendix.) Thus, the instructor immediately knows what the 
problem is and has information about how the accident scene 
must be simulated. 

Second, the instructor is told how to prepare for the 
simulation using the materials in the instructor's guide and 
locally available resources. Specific suggestions include a list 
of materials and props that must be gathered prior to the 
simulation, details of how to stage the simulated accident 
scene, how to recruit the role players, and how to present the 
role players and the observers their individual tasks and 



instructions. (See pages 6-8 of appendix.) Additional direc- 
tions are provided that explain what the instructor should do 
during the simulation, and how to conduct an effective correc- 
tive feedback and discussion session after the simulation 
including using the performance evaluation ratings by all 
class members, victim, first-aiders, and observers. (See pages 
9-10 of appendix.) Tips are also provided concerning how 
long the exercise will take, how to save the injury tags and 
props to make teaching subsequent classes with the same 
simulation exercise an easy task, and how to adapt and modify 
the exercise to local situations and needs. (See pages 10- 1 1 of 
appendix.) 

Third, the guide provides the instructor with many of the 
materials he or she needs to conduct the simulation. A set of 
performance objectives that define what the class members 
are to learn and do is helpful to instructors in clarifying their 
own thinking about the activity and may be used to report to 
superiors the purpose and contentof the activity. (Seepage 13 
of appendix.) Ready to use materials needed for the simula- 
tion are provided. These include the performance rating form 
(see pages 14-15 of appendix), a trainee questionnaire that 
allows the miners to evaluate the exercise (see page 16 of 
appendix), and a similar instructor's evaluative questionnaire. 
The instructor need only duplicate these materials. 

In addition, the instructions to the victim and the first aid 
role players, the injury tags, and prop tags are all prepared in 
final form and sufficient number (see pages 17-20 of appen- 
dix.) Again, the instructor need only make one copy of these, 
cut out the tags, and mount them on a card. Once this is done 
the same tags can be used repeatedly in new classes with the 
same simulation activity. Additional diagrams and drawings 
are included that may be useful to the instructor when discuss- 
ing the problem and providing corrective feedback after the 
simulation. These need only be copied to overhead transpar- 
encies to be used by the instructor (see pages 21-23 of 
appendix.) Finally, the reference sources are provided for the 
first aid techniques and procedures used in the simulation 
problem (see page 24 of appendix). 

Earlier observations and studies suggested that mine 
health and safety trainers are quite competent in the technical 
aspects of what they teach, but less informed about how to 
design and use effective classroom simulations. An addi- 
tional important design characteristic of these newer simula- 
tion exercises is their capability to teach instructors how to 
plan and conduct classroom simulations. Once an instructor 
has used one or two simulation exercises like the one in the 
appendix to this paper, he or she should learn specific tech- 
niques that may be applied to the development and use of 
similar simulations for annual refresher training classes. The 
instructor's guide is deliberately designed to serve as a model 
to which instructors can refer as they develop, plan, and carry 
out their own simulation exercises for annual refresher train- 
ing classes. 



93 



FIELD TESTING AND NEW SIMULATION EXERCISES 



The sample simulation exercise in the appendix to this 
paper has been field tested in 3 States at 6 training sites. To 
date, data from 3 classes at 3 sites in 2 States have been 
collected and analyzed. Additional field tests of this exercise 
and other first aid simulation exercises are in progress. 

The basic characteristics of the miners involved in the 
field test for which these results are reported are described in 
table 4. Although there were 59 miners involved in these three 
classes, the variable number of persons reported in table 4 and 
later tables reflects missing data in specific categories. Table 
5 describes the three classes for which these data are reported. 
The number of first-aiders is the number of persons who role 
played the first aid care givers. The first class had four first- 
aiders, two of whom are State mine inspectors with mine 
foreman certification, a mine equipment sales representative 
with advanced first aid training, and an engineering techni- 
cian. The five first-aiders in the second class included three 
mine health and safety instructors (two with advanced training 
in first aid and who routinely teach first aid), one mine 
supervisor, and one miner. The three first-aiders in the third 
class included two miners with only the usual training in first 
aid, and a mine supervisor with advanced first aid training. 
None of the first-aid role players were trained or certified as 
EMT's. Observers from the University of Kentucky were 
present in the first and second classrooms. 

The data gathered from these three classes were analyzed 
and used to report two basic types of findings. These are (1) 
miner evaluation of simulation exercise based upon the 
pooled ratings by all class members on specific criteria (see 
the trainee's questionnaire, page 16 of appendix), and (2) 



miner performance ratings of the first aid skills of the three 
groups of persons who role played the first-aiders in each 
classroom. 



TABLE ^-Characteristics of the three-site, three-class 
field test sample for a first aid simulation exercise 

(56 male miners — mean age, 36.4 yr; 
mean experience, 8.3 yr) 

Number Frequency, pet 



Job classification: 1 






Miner. 


28 


51.8 


Maintenance-technical. 


12 


22.2 


Supervisory-management. 


13 


24.1 


Other. 


1 


1.9 



Training Certification Performance 
Category, pet: 2 

Supervisor 17.9 16.1 1.8 

Mine safety committee. ... 3.6 8.9 1 .8 

Mine rescue 5.4 3.6 1.8 

CPR 17.9 26.8 12.5 

Advanced first aid 25.0 10.7 8.9 

EMT 7.1 12.5 1.8 

Advanced life support 7.1 3.6 0.0 

Other 3.6 7J 5.4 

'Information not provided by 2 class members, 
frequency of self-reported level of expertise. 



TABLE 5. - Class size and number and qualifications of first-aiders at three sites 



Number of first-aiders and qualifications 



Observer present 



Class 1,18 persons 
Class 2, 7 persons 
Class 3, 31 persons 



A — 2 State mine inspectors, 1 sales representative 
with AFAT, 1 engineering technician. 

5 — 3 instructors, 2 with AFAT, 1 mine 
supervisor, 1 miner. 

3 — 2 miners, 1 mine supervisor with AFAT. 



Yes 



Yes 



No 



(AFAT - self-reported advanced first aid training.) 



94 



MINER EVALUATION OF THE SIMULATION EXERCISE 



The results of miner evaluations of the exercise are 
presented in table 6. All the miners reported the exercise 
content to be authentic and realistic. Over 98 pet reported the 
exercise would help them remember important first aid 
knowledge in the future. Over 87 pet reported they learned 
something new from the simulation. About 35 pet thought the 
exercise was too long, but over 92 pet reported they liked 
working the exercise. Approximately 94 pet of the miners felt 
the instructor's directions were clear and 96 pet felt that the 
exercise directions were clear. Approximately 93 pet judged 
the graphics as easy to understand and 89 pet found the 



exercise performance scoring procedures to be easily under- 
stood. 

The results in table 6 and observations by project mem- 
bers in two of the classes indicate that both miners and instruc- 
tors were able to use the simulation effectively. Miners were 
willing and able to carry out their role play assignments. Both 
the miners and instructors were able to execute all aspects of 
the activity as planned in the printed instructor's guide. Both 
the miners and instructors were able and willing to use the 
performance evaluation form properly as a positive teaching 
tool. 



TABLE 6. • Miner ratings of exercise validity, relevance, quality, and utility (n = 59) 



Content Definitely 

4 

Problem could happen 94.4 

Help remember important things 78.2 

Learned something new 60.0 

Exercise too long 14.8 

Liked working the exercise 67.3 

Instructor directions clear 72.7 

Written exercise directions clear 59.3 

Graphics easy to understand 58.2 

Scoring easy to understand 67.3 



yes 

3 



Definitely no 
2 1 



Mean 



S.D. 



5.6 


0.0 


0.0 


3.94 


0.23 


20.0 


1.8 


.0 


3.76 


.47 


27.3 


10.9 


1.8 


3.46 


.77 


20.4 


13.0 


51.9 


1.98 


1.16 


25.0 


7.7 


.0 


3.60 


.63 


21.8 


5.5 


.0 


3.67 


.58 


37.0 


3.7 


.0 


3.56 


.57 


34.5 


5.5 


1.8 


3.49 


.69 


21.8 


3.6 


7.3 


3.49 


.88 



MINER FIRST AID PERFORMANCE ON THE SIMULATION EXERCISE 



The analyses that follow are based on the performance of 
the first-aiders in each class. Fifteen aspects of first-aider 
performance were rated on a common rating form . Each of the 
15 scales on the form was designed to evaluate key aspects of 
rescue and first aid procedures needed to cope with the 
simulation problem. The problem involved a miner whose 
legs were crushed by a roof fall after he went under unsup- 
ported top to mark up the bolt pattern for the roof bolter. A 
proper performance requires the first-aiders to assess the 
accident scene, support the top, remove the rock from the 
injured miner, and rapidly move the miner out of this danger- 
ous area. Only then is it appropriate to evaluate the victim for 
injuries, communicate with the surface, provide first aid care, 
and prepare to transport the victim to the surface. The problem 
and the performance rating form are described in the appendix 
to this paper. All members of the class, including the victim, 
the first-aiders, the observers, and the instructor rated first- 
aider performance on the form. 

The performance rating form was found to be a reliable 
measure. Table 7 presents the internal consistency reliability 
estimates of the form for the miners from all three classes and 
with the miners from all three classes pooled. Thirteen of the 
fifteen scales on the performance rating form were signifi- 



cantly and positively correlated with the total score on the 
form. Items 9 and 10 (sending for help and communicating 
clearly to the surface) were not significantly correlated with 
the total performance rating score. 



TABLE 7. • Internal consistency reliability estimates 
of the performance rating form 








Complete 


First- 


Generalizability 




ratings 1 


aiders 


coefficient 
(alpha) 2 


Class 1 


16 


4 


0.69 


Class 2 


7 


5 


.64 


Class 3 


26 


3 


.77 


Classes pooled, 


49 


12 


.80 



'Only those rating forms that contained a complete set of ratings 
on all 15 questions were included. 

2 An estimate of the internal consistency or reliability of the scale. 
The maximum possible value is 1 and the minimum value is 0. 



■ 



95 



Comparison of the within classes and between classes 
sums of squares revealed that 52 pet of the variance in per- 
formance scores among the three classes can be attributed to 
differences in first-aider performance in the three classes. The 
remaining 48 pet of the observed variance in performance 
scores is attributed to variations in miner individual ratings of 
the same observed performance. 

The performance rating total score for the first-aiders in 
each class was summed across the 1 5 scales for each rater. The 
average rating was then computed for each group (class) of 
first-aiders. Large significant differences were observed in 
the total performance scores earned by the first-aiders in each 
class (F = 24.80; df = 2.46; p = less than 0.0001). These results 
are reported in table 8. 

The difficulty of each part of the first aid performance 
required by the simulation may be estimated from the raw 
scores of the 15 individual scales found on the performance 
rating form. Table 9 presents a description of the performance 
content of each scale on the rating form along with the 



TABLE 8. - Mean scores and standard deviations 
of total performance score by class 





Complete 
ratings 


First- 
aiders 


Mean 
score 


S.D. 


Class 1 
Class 2 ... 
Class 3 


16 

7 

26 


4 
5 
3 


55.34 
73.52 
35.37 


11.15 
13.09 
15.45 



'Total raw scores were converted to a scaled to 100 score. 

maximum score for that scale, the mean score observed, and 
the standard deviation. These data are pooled across all three 
classes from a total of 49 ratings for the 12 role players. 

Table 10 presents the same data, but broken down for 
each of the three classes. The large significant differences in 
observed total scores for the three classes are reflected in the 
differences in raw scores on the individual scale items. 



TABLE 9. - Difficulty for each of 15 rescue and first aid performance tasks 1 



Scale and performance dimension 



Max 



Raw score statistics 
Min Mean 



S.D. 



l.Support mine roof before entering face area 3 

2.Safely remove draw slate from victim 2 

3.Properly remove victim from under slate 3 

4. Verbally encourage victim 2 

5.Promptly rescue-drag victim under good top 3 

6.Handle victim properly when rescue dragging 3 

7 .Conduct primary and secondary survey 3 

8.Find and treat both leg injuries 3 

9.Send for help promptly and properly 2 

lO.Communicate clearly and accurately to the surface 2 

lLProperly position and lift victim to stretcher 3 

12.Properly immobilize victim on back on stretcher 3 

13.Examine and treat victim for shock 3 

14.Maintain unconscious victim's airway 3 

15.0rganize overall first aid and rescue efforts well and efficiently 3 






1.39 


1.40 





1.12 


.99 





2.16 


1.14 





1.08 


.73 





2.45 


1.00 





1.57 


1.15 





.55 


.79 





.47 


.87 





1.67 


.55 





1.08 


.76 





1.35 


1.13 





1.02 


1.11 





1.33 


1.20 





1.27 


1.29 





.90 


.85 



'Performance data are raw scores for 3 first aid teams rated by 49 miners on all 15 performance items. 



INTERPRETATION OF MINER PERFORMANCE SCORES 



Four features of the performance results stand out: 
(1) The total performance scores are low for all groups, (2) all 
groups did an adequate job on only two scales, (3) the worst 
performance of the first-aiders was in conducting the victim 
evaluation and treating hidden injuries, and (4) large differ- 
ences exist in the performance scores of the first-aiders in the 
three classes. 

The overall scores are low for each group of first-aiders. 
(See table 8.) When the same exercise is given as a latent 



image test, miner scores are typically higher. The role play 
simulation version of the exercise requires miners to problem 
solve with less guidance than is offered in the latent image 
version of the exercise, which provides corrective feedback 
revealed through the latent image answers as the exercise is 
worked. Thus, miners learn and correct first aid procedural 
errors as they work the latent image exercise. In the role play 
simulation exercise, just as in real life, there is no corrective 
feedback, beyond that available from others present. If the 



96 



TABLE 10. - Differences in difficulty of 15 performance tasks by first aid group (class) 1 






Item 2 no. 



Class 1 
Mean S.D. 



Class 2 
Mean S.D. 



Class 3 
Mean S.D. 



Significance, 
p less than 



1 


3.00 


0.00 


1.57 


0.98 


0.34 


0.85 


0.0001 


2 


1.94 


.25 


1.71 


.76 


.46 


.86 


.0001 


3 


2.88 


.50 


2.43 


.98 


1.65 


1.23 


.0012 


4 


69 


.70 


1.86 


.38 


1.12 


.65 


.0028 


5 


2.44 


1.03 


2.71 


.76 


2.38 


1.06 


.6496 


6 


1.88 


1.20 


2.14 


1.07 


1.23 


1.07 


.1448 


7 


31 


.48 


1.43 


1.13 


.46 


.71 


.0538 


8 


31 


.48 


1.00 


1.41 


.42 


.86 


.0319 


9 


1.50 


.63 


1.86 


.38 


1.73 


.53 


.1259 


10 


69 


.60 


1.00 


1.00 


1.35 


.69 


.0155 


11 


1.25 


.93 


2.71 


.76 


1.04 


1.08 


.0138 


12 


1.06 


.85 


2.14 


1.46 


.69 


.97 


.0060 


13 


2.06 


1.12 


2.43 


.98 


.58 


.70 


.0001 


14 


1.88 


1.20 


2.71 


.76 


.50 


.86 


.0001 


15 


81 


.40 


2.43 


.98 


.54 


.51 


.0001 



'Performance data are raw scores for the first aid teams at each site on each performance item. 
2 See table 9 for description. 



first- aiders make errors they may not know it at the time. In 
addition, unlike the paper and pencil latent image version, the 
role play situation exercise requires not only knowledge of 
what to do and when to do it, but also skill in performing actual 
first aid procedures without life situations, which is more 
difficult than the latent image version. Like a well-designed 
mine rescue contest, the first aid simulation is a good test of 
knowledge, skill, and actual performance capability. 

The first-aiders in all three classes did a good job on only 
two tasks, properly removing the victim from under the slate 
(item 3), and promptly rescue-dragging the victim outby the 
face to get under supported mine roof (item 5) (see table 9). 
Both of these tasks are rescue activities and both are obvious 
actions. 

The worst performance for all three groups of first-aiders 
involved conducting a victim evaluation through a primary 
and secondary survey (item 7), and finding and treating both 
leg injuries (item 8) (see tables 9 and 10). The first-aiders in 
class 1 and class 3 did not carry out an adequate hands-on 
primary and secondary survey. Consequently, they never 
found the compound fracture of the femur, even though it was 
simulated with a broken broom handle taped to the victim's 
right front thigh along with a large injury tag that said "MUCH 
BLOOD AND BONE STICKING OUT." This simulated 



injury was concealed underneath a pair of coveralls, and the 
injured miner was lying face down. Another large injury tag 
that said "BLOOD SOAKED CLOTHING" was attached to 
the outer coveralls directly over the simulated fracture. Even 
a cursory hands-on and/or careful visual primary survey 
would have quickly revealed the presence of these injury tags 
and the simulated compound fracture. The injured miner was 
loaded and tied onto the stretcher face down. Consequently 
the injury remained undiagnosed and untreated. 

The first-aiders in class 2 carried out a victim injury 
assessment. Because of their survey they found, and treated, 
both simulated leg fractures. However, they had difficulty in 
properly bandaging and splinting the compound thigh frac- 
ture. The types of errors made by these miners in this realistic 
simulation are precisely those tasks that the 120 experts 
identified as weaknesses in miner actual first aid performance 
they had witnessed in the field (see tables 2 and 3). 

Large, statistically significant differences were observed 
in the total performance and the individual scale scores of the 
three groups of first-aiders (see tables 8 and 9). The groups 
with the greater number of first-aiders with self-reported 
advanced first aid training, and with first aid instructors, 
performed better than the less well trained groups without first 
aid instructors. 



97 



LIMITATIONS AND GENERALIZABILITY OF FINDINGS 



These results are based on the performance of only 12 
miners who role played first-aiders coping with one complex 
and realistic underground coal mine first aid problem. The 
performance results observed may not generalize to other 
groups of miners or to other first aid simulation problems or 
actual emergencies. Additional data from the first aid simu- 
lation described in this paper, as well as from other similar 
simulations, are currently being collected and analyzed. 
These additional data will help determine the generalizability 
of the findings reported here. 

Some additional observational data are available at the 
present Two additional first aid simulation exercises have 
been observed during administration to two classes. In these 
classes the miners role playing the first-aiders also performed 
poorly and made the same types of errors as those reported 
previously. Thus, even though the sample is small, the 
findings from this initial study may be generalizable to the 
broader domain of first aid performance of miners in general. 



The simulations are carefully designed to be authentic 
and realistic, and over 94 pet of the miners viewed them as 
such (see table 6). Performing the first aid procedures in front 
of a classroom, without any prior warning or preparation, is 
stressful for the first aid role players. Yet, the classroom role 
play situation can never be as difficult, stressful, and demand- 
ing as is coping with a similar serious injury accident in an 
underground mine. If miners perform poorly in realistic 
classroom simulations of first aid emergencies, they may 
perform even less well in actual mine first aid emergencies. 
The poor performance is probably related to lack of training 
in these types of first aid skills, particularly in the skills 
required for patient evaluation needed to define first aid 
treatment needs. Miners who are frequently exposed to 
realistic first aid simulation problems, like those described in 
this paper, may become more skilled in their responses to both 
simulated and actual first aid emergencies. 



SIMULATION EXERCISES AS TEACHING AND TESTING DEVICES 



Although the miners role playing the first-aiders in these 
three classes may not have performed well on the simulation 
exercise, they probably learned a great deal, as they them- 
selves reported (see table 6). The purpose of these exercises 
is primarily to teach miners to be better first-aiders. The 
realistic nature of the exercises engages the emotional and 
cognitive participation of the role players and the observers. 
At the end of the simulation, the role players, the victim, and 
the observers are anxious to critique the performance, to 
discuss and correct errors, and to repeat and practice difficult 
parts of the performance until these have been mastered. 

The exercises are most effective as tests in a personal 
sense. When the first-aider role players perform poorly, plac- 
ing themselves in great danger to rescue the victim, or failing 
to do an evaluation of the victim's injuries, these and other 
errors and their potential consequences become starkly appar- 
ent in the corrective and discussion session that follows the 
simulation. A properly designed simulation presents a realis- 
tic problem. The problem demands the full range of perform- 
ance skills required in a similar actual emergency. For this 
reason, working the simulation exercise tends to be a memo- 
rable experience. Many studies have shown that knowledge 
and skills acquired in realistic problem solving situations tend 



to be remembered well and are likely to be applied in actual 
problem situations encountered later. Knowledge and skills 
presented piecemeal, without being embedded in realistic 
problem contexts, tend to become inert. Inert knowledge fails 
to generalize to real world problem solving and also tends to 
be rapidly forgotten (Bransford (29), Gagne and Briggs (30) , 
Halpern QV)). 

It is important for miners to learn how to place and tie 
dressings and bandages, and to remember first aid facts and 
information. The teaching of first aid procedures like these, 
and drilling miners on recall of first aid facts, are popular 
instructional methods in annual refresher training classes. 
When these facts and procedures are presented in fragmented 
ways, without being placed in the context of first aid cases or 
problems, instruction cannot be expected to adequately pre- 
pare miners to cope with actual first aid emergencies. First aid 
facts and knowledge, as well as first aid skills in bandaging, 
controlling bleeding, and other procedures, need to be taught 
in the framework of realistic problems. Skills of accident 
scene evaluation, patient evaluation, and the identification of 
victim treatment needs and priorities need to be practiced. 
Well-designed simulation problem exercises provide one 
means for the realistic teaching and assessment of a wide 
range of first aid problem solving behaviors. 



98 



CONCLUSIONS 



Well-designed simulation exercises have the capability 
to teach miners what they do not yet know how to do well. The 
research reported in this paper, as well as earlier research by 
Pickar (22). suggests miners need more training in informa- 
tion gathering, victim evaluation, and first aid problem iden- 
tification and prioritization skills. Simulation exercises like 
those discussed in this paper can be used to teach and assess 
proficiency in these and other skills. Data from the field 
studies at Ohio State University and the University of Ken- 
tucky also suggests that college students and miners enjoy and 



value realistic first aid simulation problems. Length of time 
to conduct such realistic simulations need not be a barrier. The 
simulation described in this paper can be completed in a 20- 
to 30-min period. Knowing how to design and conduct an 
effective first aid simulation also need not be a barrier. The 
guidelines set forth in this paper, and me sample exercise with 
its easily adaptable format, can serve as a model for first aid 
instructors who wish to extend the procedures to other first aid 
skill areas and problems. 



REFERENCES 



1. Gilbert, G. G. The Evaluation of Simulation for Skill 
Testing in the American National Red Cross First Aid and 
Personal Safety Course. Ph.D. Thesis, Ohio State University, 
1975, 264 pp.; University Microfilms No. 76-9974. 

2. Gilbert, G. G. Teaching First Aid and Emergency 
Care. Kendall- Hunt (Dubuque, IA), 1981, 231 pp. 

3. Distlehorst, L. H., and H. S. Barrows. A New Tool for 
Problem-Based, Self-Directed Learning. J. Med. Educ, v. 57, 
No. 6, 1982, pp. 486^88. 

4. Babbott, D., and W. D. Halter. Clinical Problem- 
Solving Skills of Internists Trained in the Problem-Oriented 
System. J. Med. Educ, v. 58 No. 12, 1983, pp. 947-953. 

5. Dugdale, A. E., D. Chandler, and G. Best. Teaching 
the Management of Medical Emergencies Using an Interac- 
tive Computer Terminal. Med. Educ, v. 16, No. 1, 1982, pp. 
27-30. 

6. Farrand, L. L., W. L. Holzemer, and J. A. Schleuter- 
mann. A Study of Construct Validity: Simulations as a 
Measure of Nurse Practitioners' Problem-Solving Skills. 
Nursing Res., v. 31, No. 1, 1982, pp. 37-42. 

7. Fleisher, D. S., J. Schwenker, and M. Donnelly. 
Isomorphic Patient Management Problems: A Counterpart to 
Parallel Multiple Choice Tests. Papers in Research in Medical 
Education, Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual Confer- 
ence Assoc. Amer. Med. Colleges, 1982, pp. 143-148. 

8. Jones, G. L., and K. D. Keith. Computer Clinical 
Simulations in Health Sciences. J. Computer-Based Instr., v. 
9, No. 3, 1983, pp. 108-114. 

9. McGuire, C. H, and D. Babbott. Simulation Tech- 
nique in the Measurement of Problem-Solving Skills. J. Educ. 
Measurement, v. 4, No. 1, 1967, pp. 1-10. 

10. McGuire, C. H, L. M. Solomon, and P. G. Bashook. 
Construction and Use of Written Simulations. Psychological 
Corp. (New York), 1976, 307 pp. 

11. Norman,G.R.,P.Tugwell,andJ.W.Feightner. A 
Comparison of Resident Performance on Real and Simulated 
Patients. J. Med. Educ, v. 57, No. 9, 1982, pp. 708-715. 



12. Pryor, H. G., and G. Racey. Minicomputer Simula- 
tion of Medical Emergencies and Advanced Life Support. J. 
Dental Educ, v. 46, No. 1 1, 1982, pp. 657-660. 

13. Saunders, N. A., and B. J. Wallis. Learning Decision- 
Making in Clinical Medicine: A Card Game Dealing With 
Acute Emergencies for Undergraduate Use. Med. Educ, v. 
15, No. 5, 1981, pp. 323-327. 

14. Umbers, I. G. A Study of Control Skills in an 
Individual Task, and in a Simulation, Using the Verbal Proto- 
col Technique. Ergonomics, v. 24, No. 4, 1981, pp. 275-293. 

1 5. Hamers.G.W., Jr., W.C.Giffm, and T.H.Rockwell. 
A Study of Decision Making Behavior of Pilots Deviating 
From a Planned Flight. Aviation, Space, and Envir. Med., v. 
53, No. 10, 1982, pp. 958-963. 

16. Giffin.W.C, and T.H.Rockwell. Computer-Aided 
Testing of Pilot Response to Critical In-Flight Events. Human 
Factors, v. 26, No. 5, 1984, pp. 573-581. 

17. Jensen, R. S. Pilot Judgment: Training and Evalu- 
ation. Human Factors, v. 24, No. 1, 1982, pp. 61-73. 

18. Hunt, R. M., and W. B. Rouse. Problem-Solving 
Skills of Maintenance Trainees in Diagnosing Faults in Simu- 
lated Powerplants. Human Factors, v. 23, No. 3, 1981, pp. 
317-328. 

19. Olsen, W. C. Once Upon a Time (Training for 
Emergency Situations). Presented at Health Physics Society 
Meeting, Honolulu, HI., NTIS CONF-79 1203-6, Dec 1979, 
6 pp. 

20. Cole, H. P., G. T. Lineberry, and L. G. MalletL A 
New Technique for Teaching and Testing Mining Engineer- 
ing Concepts. Paper in Proceeding of the Fifth Annual 
Meeting of the Collegiate Association for Mining Education, 
MSHA, Beckley, WV, October 2-3, 1986, pp. 153-174. 

21. University of Kentucky. Miner and Trainer Re- 
sponse to Paper and Pencil Simulated Mine Emergency Prob- 
lems. Ongoing BuMines contract HO348040; for inf., contact 
W. J. Wiehagen, TPO, BuMines, Pittsburgh, PA. 



99 



22. Lacefield, W. E., and H. P. Cole. Principles and 
Techniques for Evaluating Continuing Education Programs. 
The Military Engineer, v. 78, No. 511, 1986, pp. 594-600. 

23. McGuire.C. Medical Problem-Solving: A Critique 
of the Literature. Paper in Research in Medical Education: 
1984 Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Conference. 
Assoc. Amer. Med. Colleges, 1984, pp. 3-13. 

24. University of Kentucky. Measuring Mine Health and 
Safety Skills. Ongoing BuMines contract HO348040; for inf. 
contact W. J. Wiehagen, TPO, Pittsburgh Research Center, 
BuMines, Pittsburgh, PA. 

25. American Red Cross. First Aid and Personal Safety 
Course of the American Red Cross. Doubleday, 1981,269 pp. 

26. Burkes, M. E. (undated). Burkes Emergency Care 
Knowledge Test H Available upon request from OH State 
Univ., Columbus, OH. 



27. Pickar, E. R. Emergency Medical Needs of Coal 
Miners. Orkand Corp., (Silver Spring, MD), NTIS PB 80-194 
651,1977,159 pp. 

28. Mine Safety and Health Administration (Washing- 
ton, DC) Coal-Underground Fatalities. First and Second 
Quarter. 1984,30 pp. 

29. Bransford, J., R. Sherwood, N. Vye, and J. Rieser. 
Teaching Thinking and Problem Solving: Research Founda- 
tions. Am. Psychol., v. 41, No. 10, 1986, pp. 1078-1089. 

30. Gagne, R. M., and L. J. Briggs. Principles of 
Instructional Design. Holt (New York) 2d ed., 1979, 321 pp. 

31. Halpern, D. F. Thought and Knowledge: An 
Introduction to Critical Thinking. Erlbaum, (Hillsdale, NJ), 
1984, 402 pp. 



100 



APPENDIX. - SAMPLE EXERCISES 



101 



MARVIN R. LETCHER FIRST AID SIMULATION 

A Training Activity 



Behavioral Research Aspects of Safety and Health Group (BRASH) 

Institute for Mining and Minerals Research (IMMR) 

University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 

November 1987 



This role play simulation exercise was developed and field tested under U. S. Bureau of Mines research 
Contract No. HO348040. Information about the design and characteristics of the exercise and the field test 
results are available in the project technical reports filed with the Bureau of Mines Research Center in 
Pittsburg, PA. This is one of more than 30 exercises designed for use in annual refresher training to teach 
and test critical skills for coping with mine emergency situations. The views and conclusions contained in 
this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the 
official policies or recommendations of the Interior Department's Bureau of Mines or the U. S. Government. 



102 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Contents 

Marvin R. Letcher Simulation Problem 3 

Accident Scene Illustrations (Figures 1 and 2) 4 

Accident Scene Illustration (Figure 3) 5 

Marvin R. Letcher First Aid Simulation 6 

Becoming Familiar with the Exercise 6 

How to Use this Exercise 7 

Before the Simulation 7 

During the Simulation 9 

After the Simulation 9 

Other Information and Ideas 10 

Time 10 

Replications 10 

Alternative Methods 1 

Appended Materials 1 1 

Performance Objectives 1 3 

Performance Rating Form 14 

Trainee's Questionnaire 1 6 

Special Instructions for the "Victim" and "Rescuers" 1 7 

Tags 1 8 

Additional Illustrations (Figures 4, 5, 6 and 7) 21 

References 24 






103 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 

MARVIN R. LETCHER SIMULATION PROBLEM 

Background 

You are driving 8 entries in 42 inch coal. 

Eleven miners are at work on the section. 

The portal is 4,000 feet outby the face. 

It is just after lunch. (Marvin ate a big meal.) 

The EMT normally on this section is absent today. 

The top is drummy and poor. 

Problem 

You are the pinner operator. You are bolting the roof in the 
#2 entry at the face. Your helper, Marvin R. Letcher, has 
gone out ahead of the bolter to mark the roof. You yell at 
him to get back. He almost gets back to supported roof 
when a piece of draw slate falls trapping both of his legs. 
(See Figures 1 & 2.) Marvin is lying down, screaming. The 
roof is dribbling across the whole entry just past the last row 
of bolts. 



104 




FIGURE 1 .—Draw slate falls from roof. 




<o 



FIGURE 2.— Draw slate hits Marvin's legs. 



Hill 
seam 



105 



Marvin 



-+ 



+ 





— Draw slate J 

V-—Automatic j 
\ temporary \ 
\ roof support/ j 


f-Top 
working 


T WW 4 

4- 4- 


Roof bolts ( 




[ J- 


— Roof bolter ) 




+ + 


+ + ( 




Crosscut (bolted roof) 




+ ■+ 


+ + -t- 


-h 



Stretcher and first-aid kit at the dinner hole 
dinner hole 240 ft away. 

Mine pager at tailpiece 200 ft away. 



FIGURE 3.— Details of Marvin's position. 



106 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
Marvin R. Letcher First Aid Simulation 



This is a companion exercise to the Marvin R. Letcher latent image exercise. It uses the 
same problem. While the latent image exercise teaches and assesses judgment and 
decision making skills, this exercise is designed to teach and assess proficiency in first 
aid care for a miner with injuries like Marvin's. 

This exercise can be used without using the latent image exercise. If so, it will be more 
like the situation miners would face in an actual emergency. If used after the latent 
image version of Marvin R. Letcher, the class members will be informed about the 
problem and know the first aid procedures. They will also be motivated to practice the 
procedures. Used either way, this simulation exercise provides hands on practice in 
carrying out the first aid procedures needed to help a miner with injuries like Marvin's. 

The activities for carrying out this simulation are simple and easy to use. After you have 
read through the materials it is easy to prepare for class. Once you have prepared for 
one class, you can use the simulation repeatedly in other classes without additional 
preparation. 



Becoming Familiar with the Exercise 

This document is an instructor's guide. It provides not only the simulation exercise, but 
detailed instructions, procedures, and materials needed to prepare for class and carry 
out the activity. There are five things you can do to become familiar with the exercise if 
you decide to use it in your classes. 

First, look over the Table of Contents found just after the exercise title page. All the 
parts of the instructor's guide are listed here and you can quickly see what these are 
and where they are located. 

Second, read the "Marvin R. Letcher Simulation Problem" on page 2 and look at 
Figures 1 and 2 (page 3) and Figure 3 (page 4). Think about this situation and how you 
would deal with it. 

Third, read through the remainder of this instructor's guide. It tells you how to prepare 
for class. 

Fourth, read the "Performance Objectives" and the "Performance Rating Form." These 
are found in the appendix. They tell you what your class members should be able to do 
when the exercise is completed. 

Fifth, if you have a master copy of the Marvin R. Letcher latent image exercise, look at 
the questions, the answers, and the "Instructor's Discussion Notes." Although you do 
not need to do this to prepare for this class, it may provide you with additional ideas. 



107 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
How To Use This Exercise 



This section lists the directions for carrying out the simulation. There are three parts. 
These explain what to do before , during , and after the simulation. Each step is 
numbered. 



Before the Simulation 

1. Gather all the materials you need for the simulation. These include: 

-slate bar (simulate or use a real bar) 

-roof bolting machine (simulate with a desk or similar object) 

-four temporary roof jacks or timbers (simulate with appropriate lightweight 
objects such as styrofoam blocks, or cardboard tubes) 

-large old trousers or coveralls that can be slipped over the "victim's" regular 
clothing 

-large flat cardboard box (to simulate the draw slate on Marvin's legs) 

-broken wooden dowel, 6 to 7 inches long and one inch in diameter (taped over 
Marvin's pants on his right upper front thigh to simulate a compound fracture of 
the femur) 

-a mine first aid kit and stretcher (Place these out of sight in another room 
or at the back of the room so the "first aiders" will have to go get them or send 
someone for them.) 

-a mine phone (Use a real phone or simulate with a small object. Place the 
"phone" at the back of the room at the "tailpiece.") 

-tags (These are in the appendix. Copy them, cut them out, and laminate 
them so they can be used again. Attach these to Marvin and the objects.) 

-"Instructions for the Victim" & "Instructions for the Rescuers" (These are in the 
appendix. Copy them, cut them out, and laminate them so they can be 
reused.) 

-Performance Rating Form, one copy for each class member (Make an 
overhead transparency of this form so you can use it after the simulation in the 
discussion.) 



108 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
-overhead projector and screen 

-overhead projector transparencies of the Marvin R. Letcher Simulation Problem 
and Figures 1, 2, and 3 (These are found on pages 2, 3, and 4. They 
are printed in large type for easy reading.) 

2. Get a volunteer to play the part of Marvin, the "victim." (Give "Marvin" the 
"Instructions for the Victim" so he will know his role. If no miners are willing, get 
another instructor to play the role of Marvin.) 

3. Select two or three miners to serve as the first aiders. (Give them a copy of 
"Instructions for Rescuers." Then send them out of the classroom so they won't 
see Marvin's injuries while you set up the accident scene. They should find the 
injuries on their own.) 

4. Set up the accident scene. (Simulate the accident scene depicted in Figures 2 
and 3 as closely as possible. Have Marvin lie down on his stomach with his head 
about 2 feet from a wall (mine rib), with his left side facing the class. Simulate the 
draw slate on Marvin's legs with a cardboard box. Simulate the roof bolter with a 
desk or similar object. Label both objects with the appropriate tags.) 

Have Marvin tape a broken wooden dowel and the "MUCH BLOOD AND BONE 
STICKING OUT" injury tag to his right upper front thigh on top of his pants. Then 
have him put on an additional pair of old pants or coveralls that can be cut. Put 
the "BLOOD SOAKED CLOTHING AND CROOKED LEG" injury tag on the outside 
of the old coveralls on top of the broken wooden dowel. Put the "CROOKED AND 
BRUISED" injury tag on the rear of the lower left leg on top of his coveralls, about 
midway between his ankle and knee. Place the cardboard box over the back of 
both legs so that it covers the injuries. Tape the injury tag "PULSE RAPID (120) 
AND WEAK" to Marvin's neck over the carotid artery. Use transparent tape. Keep 
the injury tag "VOMIT FLUIDS AND STRINGY MEAT" in your pocket. Tape to 
Marvin's cheek after the first aiders have him fully immobilized and he is ready to 
be transported. 

5. Give every class member (except the "victim" and the "rescuers") a copy of the 
Performance Rating Form. Ask each class member to look over the form. This will 
alert them to watch for key first aid actions during the simulation. Do. npi give the 
form to the miners playing the "first aiders." This would tell them what the injuries 
are and what they should do. 



109 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
Purina the Simulation 

6. Bring the "first aiders" in and have them stand at the back of the room. 

7. Introduce the problem to the "first aiders" and other class members by showing the 
overhead transparencies of the "Marvin R. Letcher Simulation Problem" and 
Figures 1, 2 and 3. Explain the problem and point out that the "victim" is in the 
same position as shown in Figures 2 and 3. (Don't tell the class and the "first 
aiders" about Marvin's injuries. Just explain the accident scene as it is described. 
Point out the "mine phone" at the "tailpiece" and explain that a first aid kit is at the 
"dinner hole.") 

8. Tell class members to move to a position where they can see the "first aiders" and 
the "victim." Ask them to watch carefully and not to prompt the first aiders. 

9. Start the simulation. Tell the "first aiders" to take care of Marvin. (During the 
simulation, do noj. interrupt the performance of the "first aiders." In the real 
situation there might not be anyone to correct their errors or to tell them what to do. 
Interrupt only if they do something that might hurt the person playing the "victim.") 

After the Simulation 

10. Give each of the "first aiders" and the "victim" a performance Rating Form. Then 
ask these people and all the other class members to complete the form. Have 
everyone complete the whole form including the information at the top of the page. 
(This activity will help the "first aiders" evaluate their own performance and correct 
errors. Completing the rating form will also help the other class members learn 
the correct first aid procedures. This is an important part of the exercise.) 

11. Complete your own Performance Rating Form, including the information at the top 
of the page. 

12. Discuss the performance of the "first aiders" with the whole class. (Put a 
transparency of a blank Performance Rating Form on the overhead projector. Talk 
about each procedure and your rating of the "first aiders." Compare your ratings 
with those of the "first aiders," the "victim," and the other class members. Be alert 
to the observations, ideas and disagreements among class members. Discussion 
of these matters can be an effective method of instruction.) 

13. During the discussion, correct any errors that were made. Show the "first aiders" 
and other class members the proper way to carry out any first aid procedures that 
were done wrong or omitted. (Let the "first aiders" demonstrate the correct 
procedure under your direction. This will help them learn.) 



9 



110 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 

14. Encourage class members to practice particular first aid procedures until they 
master them. 

15. When you have finished the discussion and demonstrations, have all class 
members complete the Trainee's Questionnaire. It is attached to the Performance 
Rating Form. After the class, look over the completed Trainee Questionnaires. 
These can be used to summarize the miners' evaluation of the exercise. This 
information may assist you in improving the exercise in the future, and in reporting 
the effectiveness of your classes to superiors. If you have ideas for improving the 
exercise write these down and send them to the following address. 



IMMR/BRASH 

201 Porter Building, University of Kentucky 

Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0205 (606) 257-3796 



Other Information and Ideas 



This section contains additional information about the exercise. It can help you plan 
the amount of time you need to present the exercise, how to prepare the exercise for 
several replications, and assist you in thinking about other ways to present the 
exercise. 



Time 

The whole simulation exercise should not take very long. In a real emergency, miners 
would need to act proficiently and quickly. The discussion, practice, and demonstration 
of procedures after the simulation may require somewhat more time. Overall, the 
activity can be completed in approximately one hour. 



Replications 

Once you have used the exercise, all materials can be kept together and used again 
with another class. This will minimize preparation time. You may also improvise and 
add new ideas and procedures in replications of the exercise. 



Alternative Methods 

Some trainers report miners do not like to role play situations like this one. If this is true 
in your classes there are some alternatives. First, a colleague can play Marvin's role. 
You can yourself play the role of a first aider and have two or three class members help 

10 



Ill 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 

you. While it is better to perform these skills than to watch others do so, class members 
can still learn a lot from watching and using the Performance Rating Form. If you follow 
this procedure, make sure everyone practices those particular skills you think are 
critical, e.g. proper movement and lifting, proper treatment for shock, proper procedures 
for immobilization, etc. You may wish to do this to ensure that all class members have 
a chance to practice critical skills. With larger classes you might have several small 
groups carrying out the simulation or parts of it all at the same time. 

There are four other points worth noting. First, after working and discussing the latent 
image version of the exercise, miners are excited and attentive to the problem. 
Therefore, they are more likely to participate in and attend closely to the simulation. 
Second, you may wish to point out that exercises similar to these are routinely used to 
train and test EMTs, military and medical personnel, and mine rescue groups. 
Experience suggests that such activity is helpful in building and maintaining proficiency 
in the skills needed in actual emergencies. Third, no individual miner's performance is 
being rated. Rather, it is the quality of care the "victim" receives that is being assessed. 
The information gathered is for instructional purposes. Fourth, you and individual 
class members can learn much about the degree to which they are informed about 
proper first aid procedures from examining the completed Performance Rating Forms. 
If ratings of the class members differ greatly from your expert rating, you should 
determine where the disagreements lie. Then you can correct any errors or 
misunderstandings among class members. 



Appended Materials 



This appendix contains seven items. These materials are needed to carry out the 
simulation and the class discussion. The first item is a list of the performance 
objectives for this exercise. The objectives for the latent image version of the Marvin R. 
Letcher exercise are similar to, but are not the same as the objectives for this simulation 
exercise. The objectives for this exercise deal with hands on performance of first aid 
skills needed to rescue and care for a person with injuries like Marvin's. 

Next is the Performance Rating Form. It is to be used by each member of the class to 
rate the adequacy of first aid procedures carried out on Marvin. You also need to 
complete one of these forms yourself so you can use it during the discussion period. 

Next is the Trainee's Questionnaire. After the exercise is completed each miner should 
complete this questionnaire. It is helpful to collect these and review the class members 
reaction to the exercise. 

The next item is the instructions for the "victim" and the "rescuers." These are printed 
within boxes. They are designed to be duplicated, cut out, and mounted on a card to 
be reused. These are the special instructions given to the persons who participate in 
the simulation activity. 

11 



112 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Next are the tags. These are also printed within boxes so that they may be copied, cut 
out, and mounted on cards for reuse. Some tags are large and have large bold type. 
Others are small and have small type. The size of the tag and its type are related to the 
obviousness of the injury or item. For example, the pulse rate tag is small and 
inconspicuous while the much blood and bone sticking out tag is large and noticeable. 

The next items are Figures 4, 5, 6, and 7 and may be useful in the class discussions. 
Finally, you will find included the references used in the design of this exercise. 



12 



113 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
Performance Objectives for Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Objective 
number 


Capability 
verbte) 


1 FA/EE* 


Remove 
Extract 


2 FA 


Demonstrate 
Perform 


3 FA 


Simulate 
Demonstrate 


4 FA 


Describe 
Communicate 


5 FA 


Identify 
Treat 


6 FA 


Demonstrate 


7 FA 


Demonstrate 
Execute 



8 FA 



9FA/EE 



Demonstrate 
Simulate 



Demonstrate 



Description of desired performance and 

conditions under which it is to occur 

A victim from under a roof fall while minimizing 
risk to self and victim 

Clothing drag procedures for the rapid but gentle 
removal of a victim from a dangerous place while 
minimizing risk of further injury 

Primary and secondary survey first aid procedures 
given a simulated victim 

To surface personnel the nature and extent of injuries 
of a simulated victim 

Compound and regular fractures of the upper and 
lower legs of a simulated roof fall victim 

Proficiency in use of a mine first aid kit and a mine 
stretcher 

Procedures for positioning and lifting a simulated 
victim on a stretcher, supporting and immobilizing 
fractured legs, bandaging wounds, and full body 
immobilization on a stretcher prior to transporting 

Procedures for identifying and treating shock, 
maintaining an open airway in an unconscious 
person who is vomiting, using a simulated victim 

Skill in organizing and directing rescue and first aid 
activity in a group setting of three or more persons 
given a simulated victim 



'Skill and knowledge domain abbreviation: 
FA = first aid 
EE = emergency evacuation and escape 



<3 



114 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
Performance Rating Form for Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Instructor 



Company 



Date 



In this problem I was a(n): (Check the appropriate space(s)) 
Victim First Aider Observer 



Class Instructor 



Circle the number that best describes the quality of first aid treatment you observe. 
Procedures are assigned a maximum value of 2, if they are expertly performed. 
Adequate, but not expert performance is rated a 1. Performances not attempted or 
poorly completed are rated 0. Add the numbers circled to obtain the total score. Look 
over the entire form before you begin. 



Procedure 

1 . Was the mine roof properly supported before 
the first aiders moved to and worked on the 
victim? 

2. Was the draw slate promptly and properly 
removed from the victim? 

3. Was the victim properly moved from under 
the draw slate to minimize further injuries 
to him and avoid risk to rescuers? 

4. Was the victim given verbal encouragement 
during rescue and care? 

5. Was the victim promptly moved from the entry 
to an area of well supported roof? 

6. Was the victim positioned, handled, and moved 
properly when moved from the entry to an area 
of supported roof? 

7. Was the primary survey properly carried out? 



Yes 
Done wel 



Yes 
Adequate 



No 




14 



115 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Yes 

Done well 



2 
2 
2 



Procedure 

8. Was the secondary survey properly carried 
out? 

9. Were both leg injuries immobilized? 

1 0. Was help sent for promptly and properly? 

1 1 . Was communication about the injury to the 
surface clear, accurate, and complete? 

1 2. Was the victim properly positioned and 
lifted onto the stretcher? 

1 3. Was the victim properly immobilized on the 
stretcher on his or her back? 

1 4. Was the victim treated for shock? 



15. Was the immobilized victim's airway maintained 2 
even when vomiting? 

1 6. Overall, were the rescue and first aid efforts 2 
well organized and efficient? 



Yes 

Adequate 



No 









Sum 

Total Score = 



Highest Possible Score = 32, lowest = 



Comments : 



15 



116 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
TRAINEES QUESTIONNAIRE (Simulation Exercise) 



1) 


name of exercise 














2) 


your age 
your job title 


3) 


your sex M 


F 4) years 


underground coal miner 






5) 






Che 

6) 


ck aJi the areas in which 

Mine Foreman 

Mine Safety Committee 

Mine rescue 

CPR 

Advanced first aid 

EMT 

Advanced life support 

Other 
(describe) 


you have special training. 


certification, and/or that vou routinelv perform. 

Special Rout 
Training Certification Perfo 


nely 

rm 


7) 










8) 










9) 










10) 










11) 










12) 










13) 





















Think about the exercise you just finished. Circle the number which tells how much you agree or disagree 
with the following statements. 



14) This problem could happen in real life. 

15) This exercise will help me remember something 
important if I am ever in a similar situation. 

1 6) I learned something new from the exercise. 

1 7) The exercise took too long to complete. 

18) I liked working the exercise. 

1 9) The instructor's directions were clear. 

20) The written directions in the exercise were easy 
to understand. 

21 ) The diagrams and tags were easy to understand. 

22) The scoring procedures were easy to understand. 



Definitely Yes 
4 3 



Definitely No 



If you have anything more to say about the exercise, please write on the back of this page. Thank 






ou. 



16 



117 



INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE VICTIM 

1 . Scream for help and pretend to struggle to get out 
from under the draw slate. 

2. After your buddies get the rock off you get weaker. 

Moan and say your legs hurt. 

3. As your buddies move you, act dazed and sleepy. 
Then you act like you are passed out. 

4. When your buddies have you fully tied down on the 

stretcher, pretend you are vomiting but still passed out. 



INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE RESCUERS 

1. You are upset by Marvin's screaming and the accident. 

2. Use good first aid procedures to rescue and care for 
Marvin and take care of yourselves. 



17 



118 



DRAW SLATE 



(Put on box.) 



ROOF BOLTER 



(Put on desk.) 



ROOF JACK 



(Put on simulated jack.) 



ROOF JACK 



(Put on simulated jack. 






18 



119 



ROOF JACK 



(Put on simulated jack.) 



ROOF JACK 



(Put on simulated jack.) 



MUCH BLOOD AND 
BONE STICKING OUT 

(Put on right front thigh on victim's pants under coveralls.) 



BLOOD SOAKED 
CLOTHING 

(Put on right front thigh on top of coveralls.) 



19 



120 



MINE PHONE 

(Put on phone at back of room) 



BRUISED & CROOKED 

(Put on Marvin's left rear lower 
leg outside coveralls.) 



Rapid weak 
pulse (120) 



(Put on Marvin's neck 
over the carotid artery.) 



VOMIT FLUIDS & 
STRINGY MEAT 

(Keep in your pocket until Marvin is 

fully tied down on the stretcher. 

Then attach to his cheek.) 






20 



121 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 



Additional Illustrations 



Use overhead transparencies of these illustrations during the discussion to help 
demonstrate proper techniques for moving, lifting and immobilizing Marvin. 




^*Jt*-9*Jfi*: 



FIGURE 4.— Emergency one-rescuer clothing drag. 



-21 



122 




FIGURE 5.— Emergency clothing drag with three rescuers. 



22 



123 




FIGURE 6.— Three-person lifting procedure for moving injured person. 




FIGURE 7.— Ties for immobilizing Marvin's leg fractures. 



23 



124 



Marvin R. Letcher Simulation 
References 



American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. (1981). Emergency care and 
transportation of the sick and injured (3rd ed.). Chicago, IL: Author. 

American Red Cross. (1981). Standard first aid & personal safety (2nd ed.). New York: 
Doubleday. 

Aaron, J.E., Bridges, F. A.., & Ritzel, D. O. (1972). First aid and emergency care 
prevention and protection of injuries. New York: Macmillan. 

Bergeron, J. D. (1982). First responder. Bowie, MD: Robert J. Brady Co. 

Mine Safety and Health Administration. (1980). First aid book. Washington, DC: 
U.S. Government Printing Office. 



24 



INT.-BU.OF MINES,PGH. ,PA. 28713 

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